^y/r/y/^Vj 


/y 


r  /^ 


/y 


VJ 


^///A/r 


^  /' 

X^////^//// 


///'^A 


/yy////, 


//MS' 


J 


» 


LittRAKT 

•TATE  TCACHCRS  COLLtOk 
•ANTA  SARBAKA.  CALII»CmN»A 


THE 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND 


FROM   THE 


ACCESSION    OF   JAMES    II 


BT 

THOMAS  BABINGTON  xMACAULAY. 


VOL.  L 


CHICAGO : 

DONOHUE,  HENNEBERRY  &  CO. 

407-425  Dearborn  Street 
1890 


DONOHUE  &  HENNEBERRY, 

Printers  and  Binders, 

Chicago. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  1. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Introduction 13 

Britain  under  the  Romans . 15 

Britain  under  the  Saxons , 16 

Conversion  of  the  Saxons  to  Christianity 17 

Danish  Invasions ;  The  Normans , 20 

Tlie  Norman  Conquest 23 

Separation  of  England  and  Normandy 25 

Amalgamation  of  Races 26 

English  Conquests  on  the  Continent . . . , 28 

Wars  of  the  Roses 30 

Extinction  of  Villenage 31 

Beneficial  Operation  of  the  Roman  Catholic   Religion 32 

The  early  English  Polity  often  misrepresented,  and  why  ? .. . .  34 

Nature  of  the  Limited  Monarchies  of  the  Middle  Ages 36 

Prerogatives  of  the  early  English  Kings 37 

Limitations  of  the  Prerogative 38 

Resistance  an  ordinary  Check  on  Tyranny  in  the  Middle  Ages  42 

Peculiar  Character  of  the  English  Aristocracy. 45 

Government  of  the  Tudors : 46 

Limited  Monarchies  of  the  Middle  Ages  generally  turned  into 

Absolute  Monarchies 49 

The  English  Monarchy  a  singular  Exception 50 

The  Reformation  and  its  Effects 51 

Origin  of  the  Church  of  England 55 

Pier  peculiar  Character , , 57 

Relation  in  which  she  stood  to  the  Crown 59 

The  Puritans 63 

Their  Republican  Spirit 65 

No  systematic  parliamentary  Opposition  offered  to  the  Gov- 
ernment of  Elizabeth 66 

5 


6  CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Question  of  the  Monopolies 67 

Scotland  and  Ireland  become  Parts  of  the  same  Empire  with 

England 68 

Diminution  of  the  Importance  of  England  after  the  Accession 

of  James  1 72 

Doctrine  of  Divine  Right 73 

The  Separation   between   the  Chnrch  and  the  Puritans    be- 
comes wider 77 

Accession  and  Character  of  Charles  I. . .  •. 85 

Tactics  of  the  Opposition  in  the  House  of  Commons 86 

Petition  of  Right 87 

Petition  of  Right  violated  ;  Character  and  Designs  of  Went- 

worth 88 

Character  of  Laud 89 

Star  Chamber  and  High  Commission 90 

Ship-Money 91 

Resistance  to  the  Liturgy  in  Scotland 94 

A  Parliament  called  and  dissolved 95 

The  Long  Parliament 97 

First  Appearance  of  the  Two  great  English  Parties 98 

The  Remonstrance 105 

Impeachment  of  the  Five  Members 107 

Departure  of  Charles  from  London 108 

Commencement  of  the  Civil  War .  „ .   Ill 

Successes  of  the  Royalists 112 

Rise  of  the  Independents 114 

Oliver  Cromwell 115 

Self  denying  Ordinance  ;  Victory  of  the  Parliament 116 

Domination  and  Character  of  the  Army   117 

Rising  against  the  Military  Government  suppressed 120 

Proceedings  against  the  King 121 

His  Execution 124 

Subjugation  of  Ireland  and  Scotland 126 

Expulsion  of  the  Long  Parliament 127 

The  Protectorate  of  Oliver  Cromwell 130 

Oliver  succeeded  by  Richard ^ 135 

Fall  of  Richard  and  Revival  of  the  Long  Parliament 137 

Second  Expulsion  of  the  Long  Parliament 138 

The  Army  of  Scotland  marches  into  England 139 

Monk  declares  for  a  Free  Parliament 141 


CONTENTS.  7 

PAOE. 

Geueial  Election  of  1660 142 

The  Restoration 143 

CHAPTER  II. 

Conduct  of  those  who  restored  the  House  of  Stuart  unjustly 

censured 145 

Abolition  of  Tenures  by  Knight  Service ;  Disbandment  of  the 

Army 147 

Disputes  between  the  Roundheads  and  Cavaliers  renewed 148 

Religious  Dissension 150 

Unpopularity  of  the  Puritans 153 

Character  of  Charles  II „ 159 

Character  of  the  Duke  of  York  and  Earl  of  Clarendon 162 

General  Election  of  1661 165 

Violence  of  the  Cavaliers  in  the  new  Parliament 166 

Persecution  of  the  Puritans 167 

Zeal  of  the  Church  for  Hereditary  Monarchy 168 

Change  in  the  Morals  of  the  Community 168 

Profligacy  of  Politicians 171 

State  of  Scotland 173 

State  of  Ireland 176 

The  Government  become  unpopular  in  England 177' 

War  with  the  Dutch 180 

Opposition  in  the  House  of  Commons 181 

Fall  of  Clarendon 182 

State  of  European  Politics,  and  Ascendency  of  France 185 

Character  of  Lewis  XIV 187 

The  Triple  Alliance 189 

The  Country  Party 190 

Connection  between  Charles  II.  and  France 191 

Views  of  Lewis  with  respect  to  England 194 

Treaty  of  Dover 196 

Nature  of  the  English  Cabinet 197 

The  Cabal 198 

Shutting  of  the  Exchequer 201 

War  with  the  United  Provinces,  and  their  extreme  Danger.  . .   202 

William,  Prince  of  Orange 203 

Meeting  of  the  Parliament ;  Declaration  of  Indulgence 205 

It  is  cancelled,  and  the  Test  Act  passed 207 

The  Cabal  dissolved 208 


8  CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Peace  with  the  United  Provinces  ;  Administration  of  Danby  209 

Embarrassing  Situation  of  the  Country  Party 211 

Dealings  of  that  Party  with  the  French  Embassy 213 

Peace  of  Niniegueu 213 

Violent  Discontents  in  England 214 

Fall  of  Danby  ;  the  Popish  Plot 216 

Violence  of  the  new  House  of  Commons 221 

Temple's  Plan  of  Government 223 

Character  of  Halifax 225 

Character  of  Sunderland 228 

Prorogation  of  the  Parliament ;  Habeas  Corpus  Act ;  Second 

General  Election  of  1679 230 

Popularity  of  Monmouth 231 

Lawrence  Hyde .  .• 235 

Sidney  Godolphin 236 

Violence  of  Factions  on  the  Subject  of  the  Exclusion  Bill. 237 

Names  of  Whig  and  Tory   ; 238 

Meeting  of  Parliament ;  The  Exclusion  Bill  passes  the  Com- 
mons ;  Exclusion  Bill  rejected  by  the  Lords 239 

Execution  of  Stafford  ;  General  Election  of  1681 240 

Parliament  held  at  Oxford,  and  dissolved 241 

Tory  Reaction 242 

Persecution  of  the  Whigs 244 

Chaiter  of  the  City  confiscated  ;  Whig  Conspiracies 245 

Detection  of  the  Whig  Conspiracies 247 

Severity  of  the  Government ;  Seizure  of  Charters 248 

Lifliience  of  the  Duke  of  York 250 

He  is  opposed  by  Halifax 251 

Lord  Guildford 252 

Policy  of  Lewis 254 

State  of  Factioiv*  in  the  Court  of  Charles  at  the  time  of  his 

Dftath 256 

CHAPTER  m. 

Great  Change  in  the  State  of  England  since  1685 257 

Population  of  England  in  1685 259 

Increase  of  Population  greater  in  the  North  than  in  the  South  261 

Revenue  iu  1G85 264 

Military  System 266 

The  Navy- 273 


CONTENTS.  9 

PAGE. 

The  Ordnance 280 

Noneffective  Charge  ;  Charge  of  Civil  Government > .  281 

Great  Gains  of  Ministers  and  Courtiers 282 

State  of  Agriculture 285 

Mineral  Wealth  of  the  Country 289 

Increase  of  Rent 291 

Tlie  Country  Gentlemen 292 

The  Clergy 296 

The  Yeomanry  ;  Growth  of  the  Towns  ;  Bristol 306 

Norwich 308 

Other  Country  Towns 309 

Manchester  ;  Leeds ;  Sheffield 311 

Birmingham 313 

Liverpool 314 

Watering-places ;  Cheltenham ;  Brighton  ;  Buxton  ;  Tunbridge 

Wells 315 

Bath 316 

London 318 

The  City 320 

Fashionable  Part  of  the  Capital 324 

Police  of  London 329 

Lighting  of  London 330 

Whitefriars  ;  The  Court 331 

The  Coffee  Houses 334 

Difficulty  of  Travelling 338 

Badness  of  the  Roads 339 

Stage  Coaches 343 

Highwaymen 346 

Inns 349 

Post  Office , 350 

Newspapers 352 

News-letters 354 

The  Observator 356 

Scarcity  of  Books  in  Country  Places ;  Female  Education 357 

Literary  Attainments  of  Gentlemen 359 

Influence  of  French  Literature 360 

Immorality  of  the  Polite  Literature  of  England 361 

State  of  Science  in  England 368 

State  of  the  Fine  Arts. 373 

State  of  the  Common  People  ;  Agricultural  Wages 376 


10  CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Wages  of  Manufacturers 378 

Labour  of  Children  in  Factories 379 

Wages  of  different  Classes  of  Artisans 380 

Number  of  Paupers 381 

Benefits  derived  by  the  Common  People  from  the  Progress  of 

Civilisation 382 

Delusion  which  leads  Men  to  overrate  the  Happiness  of  pro- 
ceding  Generations 385 

CHAPTER   rV, 

Death  of  Charles  II 387 

Suspicions  of  Poison 398 

Speech  of  James  II.  to  the  Privy  Council 400 

James  proclaimed 401 

State  of  the  Administration 402 

New  Arrangements 404 

Sir  George  Jeffreys 406 

The  Revenue  collected  without  an  Act  of  Parliament 410 

A  Parliament  called 411 

Transactions  between  James  and  the  French  King 412 

Churchill  sent  Ambassador  to  France  ;  His  History 415 

Feelings  of  the  Continental  Governments  towards  England. .  418 

Policy  of  the  Court  of  Rome. 420 

Struggle  in  the  Mind  of  James  ;  Fluctuations  in  his  Policy.. .  423 
Public  Celebration  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Rites  in  the  Palace  425 

His  Coronation 427 

Enthusiasm  of  the  Tories  ;  Addresses 430 

The  Elections 431 

Proceedings  against  Gates 435 

Proceedings  against  Dangerfield 440 

Proceedings  against  Baxter 442 

Meeting  of  the  Parliament  of  Scotland 446 

Feeling  of  James  towards  the  Puritans 447 

Cruel  Treatment  of  the  Scotch  Covenanters 449 

Feeling  of  James  towards  the  Quakers 453 

William  Penn 455 

PocTiliar  Favour  shown  to  Roman  Catholics  and  Quakers 458 

Meeting  of  the  English  Parliament;  Trevor  chosen  Speaker; 

Character  of  Seymour 461 

The  King's  Speech  to  the  Parliament 463 


CONTENTS.  H 

PAGE. 

Debate  in  the  Commons  ;  Speech  of  Seymour 464 

The  Revenue  voted ;  Proceedings  of  the  Commons  concerning' 

Religion 465 

Additional  Taxes  voted  ;  Sir  Dudley  North 467 

Proceedings  of  the  Lords . 469 

Bill  for  reversing  the  Attainder  of  Stafford 470 


CHAPTER  V. 

Whig  Refugees  on  the  Continent 472 

Their  Correspondents  in  England 473 

Characters  of  the  leading  Refugees  ;  Ayloffe  ;  Wade 474 

Goodenough ;  Rumbold 475 

Lord  Grey 476 

Monmouth 477 

Ferguson 478 

Scotch  Refugees  ;  Earl  of  Argyle 483 

Sir  Patrick  Hume;  Sir  John  Cochrane ;  Fletcher  of  Saltoun.   486 

Unreasonable  Conduct  of  the  Scotch  Refugees 487 

Arrangement  for  an  Attempt  on  England  and  Scotland 488 

John  Locke 490 

Preparations  made  by  Government  for  the  Defence  of  Scot- 
land   491 

Conversation  of  James  with  the  Dutch  Ambassadors ;  Ineffec- 
tual Attempts  to  prevent  Argyle  fi"om  sailing 492 

Departure  of  Argyle  from  Holland;  He  lands  in  Scotland...  .  495 

His  Disputes  with  his  Followers 496 

Temper  of  the  Scotch  Nation 498 

Argyle's  Forces  dispersed •      501 

Argyle  a  Prisoner 502 

His  Execution , . .    507 

Execution  of  Rumbold 508 

Death  of  Ayloff 510 

Devastation  of  Argyleshire 511 

Lieffectual  Attempts  to  prevent  Monmouth  from  leaving  Hol- 
land  512 

His  Arrival  at  Lyme .       514 

His  Declaration -   515 

His  Popularity  in  the  West  of  England . .    .  . ,     516 

Encounter  of  the  Rebels  with  the  Militia  at  Bridport      .....     618 
Encounter  of  the  Rebels  with  the  Militia  at  Axminster  j  News 


12  CONTENTS. 

VXGB, 

of  the  Rebellion  carried  to  London  ;  Loyalty  of  the  Parlia- 
ment     = 520 

Reception  of  Monmouth  at  Taunton 524 

He  takes  the  Title  of  King >  527 

His  Reception  at  Bridgewater 531 

Preparations  of  the  Government  to  oppose  him 532 

His  Design  on  Bristol 535 

He  relinquishes  that  Design 53G 

Skirmish  at  Philip's  Norton;  Despondence  of  Monmouth..    .  538 
He  returns  to  Bridgewater ;    The  Royal  Army  encamps  at 

Sedgemoor .      . .      540 

Battle  of  Sedgemoor 544 

Pursuit  of  the  Rebels - 550 

Military  Executions  ;  Flight  of  Monmouth 551 

His  Capture 558 

His  Letter  to  the  King;  He  is  carried  to  London    555 

His  Interview  with  the  King  .......    ....      556 

His  Execution . 560 

His  Memory  cherished  by  the  Common  People     . .    563 

Cruelties  of  the  Soldiers  in  the  West  ;  Kirke     ,,      566 

Jeffreys  sets  out  on  the  Western  Circuit   .    ....    571 

Trial  of  Alice  Lisle .    ... 572 

The  Bloody  Assizes 576 

Abraham  Holmes 579 

Christopher  Battiscombe ;  The  Hewlings 580 

Punishment  of  Tutchin 581 

Rebels  Transported 582 

Confiscation  and  Extortion 583 

Rapacity  of  the  Queen  and  her  Ladies. 585 

Grey  ;  Cochrane  ;    Storey 591 

Wade,  Goodenough,  and  Ferguson 591 

Jeffreys  made  Lord  Chancellor 593 

Trial  and  Execution  of  Cornish 594 

Trials  and  Executions  of  Fernley  and  Elizabeth  Gaunt 596 

Trial  and  Execution  of  Bateman 598 

*?<irsecution  of  the  Protestant  Dissenter^ 699 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER  I. 

I  PURPOSE  to  write  the  history  of  England  from  the  accession 
of  King  James- the  Second  down  to  a  time  which  is  within  the 
memory  of  men   still  living.    I  shall  recount  the  errors  which, 
in  a  few  months,  alienated  a  loyal  gentry  and  priesthood  from 
the  House  of  Stuart.     I  shall  trace  tlie  course  of  that  revolution 
which  terminated  the  long  struggle  between  our  sovereigns  and 
their  parliaments,  and  bound  up  together  the  rights  of  the  peo- 
ple and  the  title  of  the  reigning  dynasty.     I  shall  relate  how  the 
new  settlement  was,  during  many  troubled  years,  successfully 
defended  aijainst  foreisjn  and  domestic  enemies  ;  how,  under  that 
settlement,  the  authority  of  law  and  the   security  of   property 
were  found  to  be  compatible  with  a  liberty  of  discussion  and  of 
individual  action  never  before  known  ;  how,  from  the  auspicious 
union    of  order  and  freedom,  sprang  a  prosperity  of  whicli  the 
annals  of  human  affairs  had  furnislied  no  example  ;   how  our 
country,  from  a  state  of  ignominious  vassalage,  rapidly  rose  to 
the  place  of  umpire  among  European  powers  ;  how  her  opulence 
and  her  martial  glory  grew  together ;  how,  by  wise  and  resolute 
good  faith,  was  gradually  establislied  a  public  credit  fruitful  of 
marvels  which  to  the  statesmen  of  any  former  age  would  liave 
seemed   incredible  ;  how  a  gigantic  commerce  gave  birth  to  a 
maritime  power,  compared  with   which   every   other   maritime 
power,  ancient  or  modern,  sinks  into  insignificance  ;  how  Scot- 
land, after  ages  of  enmity,  was  at  length  united  to  England,  not 
merely  by  legal  bonds,  but  by  indissoluble  ties  of  interest  and 
affection  ;    how,  in  America,  the  British  colonies  rapidly  became 
far  mightier  and  wealthier  than  the  realms  which   Cortes   and 


1* 


14  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Pizarro  had  added  to  the  dominions  of  Charles  the  Fifth ;  how. 
in  Asia,  British  adventurers  founded  an  empire  not  less  splen- 
did and  more  durable  than  that  of  Alexander. 

Nor  will  it  be  less  my  duty  faithfully  to  record  disasters 
mingled  with  triumphs,  and  great  national  crimes  and  lollies  . 
far  more  humiliating  than  any  disaster.  It  will  be  seen  that 
even  what  we  justly  account  our  chief  blessings  were  not  with- 
out alloy.  It  will  be  seen  that  tho  system  which  effectually  se- 
cured our  liberties  against  the  encroachments  of  kingly  power 
gave  birth  to  a  new  class  of  abuses  from  which  absolute  monar- 
chies are  exempt.  It  will  be  seen  that,  in  consequence  partly  of 
mi  wise  interference,  and  partly  of  unwise  neglect,  the  increase  of 
wealth  and  the  extension  of  trade  produced,  together  with 
immense  good,  some  evils  from  which  poor  and  rude  societies 
are  free.  It  will  be  seen  how,  in  two  important  dependencies  of  the 
crown,  wrong  was  followed  by  just  retribution  ;  how  imprudence 
and  obstinacy  broke  the  ties  which  bound  the  North  American 
colonies  to  the  parent  state  ;  how  Ireland,  cursed  by  the  domina- 
tion of  race  over  race,  and  of  religion  over  religion,  remained 
indeed  a  member  of  the  empire,  but  a  withered  and  distorted 
member,  adding  no  strength  to  the  body  politic,  and  reproachfully 
pointed  at  by  all  wdio  feared  or  envied  the  greatness  of  Eng- 
land. 

Yet,  unless  I  greatly  deceive  myself,  the  general  effect  of 
this  chequered  narrative  will  be  to  excite  thankfulness  in  all  reli- 
gious minds,  and  hoi^e  in  the  breasts  of  all  patriots.  For  the 
histoi'y  of  our  country  during  the  last  hundred  and  sixty  years 
is  eminently  the  history  of  physical,  of  moral,  and  of  intellectual 
improvement.  Those  who  compare  the  age  on  which  their  lot 
has  fallen  with  a  golden  age  which  exists  only  in  their  imagina- 
tion may  talk  of  degeneracy  and  decay  :  but  no  man  who  is 
correctly  informed  as  to  the  past  will  be  disposed  to  take  a  mo- 
rose or  desponding  view  of  the  present. 

I  should  very  imperfectly  execute  the  task  which  I  have 
undertaken  if  I  were  merely  to  treat  of  battles  and  sieges,  of  the 
rise  and  full  of  administrations,  of  intrigues  in  the  palace,  and  of 
debates  in  the  parliament.     It  will  be  my  endeavour  to  relate  tho 


BEFOKE   THIC    llESTOKATIOX.  15 

history  of  the  people  as  well  as  the  history  of  the  governmeat^ 
to  trace  the  progress  of  useful  and  ornamental  arts,  to  describe- 
the  ri^e  of  religious  sects  and  the  changes  of  literary  taste,  to 
portray  the  manners  of  successive  generations  and  not  to  pass 
by  with  neglect  even  the  revolutions  which  have  taken  place  in 
dress,  furniture,  repasts,  and  public  amusements.  T  shall  cheer- 
fully bear  the  reproach  of  having  descended  below  the  dignity 
of  history,  if  1  can  succeed  in  j  lacing  before  the  English  of  tl:c 
nineteenth  century  a  true  i)ictuie  of  the  life  of  their  ancestors. 

The  events  which  I  propose  to  relate  form  only  a  single 
act  of  a  great  and  eventful  drama  extending  through  ages,  and 
must  be  very  imperfectly  understood  unless  the  plot  of  the 
preceding  acts  be  well  known.  I  shall  therefore  introduce  my 
narrative  by  a  slight  sketch  of  the  history  of  our  country  froia 
the  earliest  times.  I  shall  pass  very  rapidly  over  many  cei 
turies  :  but  I  shall  dwell  at  some  length  on  the  vicissitudes  a 
that  contest  which  the  administration  of  King  James  the  Second 
brought  to  a  decisive  crisis.* 

Nothing  in  the  early  existence  of  Britain  indicated  th<', 
greatness  which  she  was  destined  to  attain.  Her  inhabitants 
when  first  they  became  known  to  the  Tyrian  mariners,  werii 
little  superior  to  the  natives  of  the  Sandwich  Islands.  Sho 
was  subjugated  by  the  Roman  arms  ;  but  she  received  only  a 
faint  tincture  of  Roman  arts  and  letters.  Of  the  western  pro\  - 
inces  which  obeyed  the  Caesars,  she  was  the  last  that  war, 
conquered,  and  the  first  that  was  flung  away.  No  magnificent 
remains  of  Latin  porches  and  aqueducts  are  to  be  found  in 
Britain.  No  writer  of  British  birth  is  reckoned  among  the 
masters  of  Latin  poetry  and  eloquence.  It  is  not  probable  that 
the  islanders  were  at  any  time  generally  familiar  with  the 
tongue  of  their  Italian  rulers.  From  the  Atlantic  to  the 
vicinity  of  the  Rhine   the  Latin  has,  during  many  centuries, 

*  In  this,  and  in  the  next  chapter,  I  have  very  seldom  thought  it  necessary  to 
cite  anthorities :  for.  in  these  cliapters,  I  have  not  detailed,  evonts  minntely,  oi 
used  recondite  materials  ;  and  the  facts  wliich  I  mention  are  for  the  most  part 
such  that  a  person  tolerably  well  read  in  English  liistory,  if  not  already  ap- 
prised of  them,  will  at  least  Icnow  where  to  look  for  evidence  of  them.  Tn  the 
Bubsequent  chapters  I  sha'll  carefully  indicate  the  sources  of  to-'  <'><"ormation. 


16  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

been  predominant.  It  drove  out  the  Celtic  ;  it  was  not  driven 
out  by  the  Teutonic;  and  it  is  at  this  day  the  basis  of  the 
French,  Spanish  and  Portuguese  languages.  In  our  island  the 
Latin  appears  never  to  have  superseded  the  old  Gaelic  speech, 
and  could  not  stand  its  ground  against  the  German. 

The  scanty  and  superficial  civilisation  which  the  Britons  had 
derived  from  their  southern  masters  was  effaced  by  the  calamities 
of  the  fifth  century.  In  the  continental  kingdoms  into  which 
the  Roman  empire  was  then  dissolved,  the  conquerors  learned 
much  from  the  conquered  race.  In  Britain  the  conquered  race 
became  as  barbarous  as  the  conquerors. 

All  the  chiefs  who  founded  Teutonic  dynasties  in  the  con- 
tinental provinces  of  the  Roman  empire,  Alaric,  Theodoric, 
Clovis,  Alboin,  were  zealous  Christians.  The  followers  of  Idu 
and  Cerdic,  on  the  other  hand,  brought  to  their  settlements  in 
Britain  all  the  superstitions  of  the  Elbe.  While  the  German 
princes  who  reigned  at  Paris,  Toledo,  Aries,  and  Ravenna 
listened  with  reverence  to  the  instructions  of  bishops,  adored 
the  relics  of  martyrs,  and  took  part  eagerly  in  disputes  touching 
the  Nicene  theology,  the  rulers  of  Wessex  and  Mercia  were 
still  performing  savage  rites  in  the  temples  of  Thor  and 
Woden. 

The  continental  kingaoms  which  had  risen  on  the  ruins  of 
the  Western  Empire  kept  up  some  intercourse  with  those 
eastern  provinces  where  the  ancient  civilisation,  though  slowly 
fading  away  under  the  influence  of  misgovernment,  might  still 
astonish  and  instruct  barbarians,  where  the  court  still  exhibited 
the  splendour  of  Diocletian  and  Constantine,  where  the  public 
buildings  were  still  adorned  with  the  sculptures  of  Polycletus 
and  the  paintings  of  Apelles,  and  where  laborious  pedants, 
themselves  destitute  of  taste,  sense,  and  spirit,  could  still  read 
and  interpret  the  masterpieces  of  Sophocles,  of  Demosthenes, 
and  of  Plato.  From  this  communion  Britain  was  cut  off.  Her 
slipres  were,  to  the  polished  race  which  dwelt  by  the  Bosporus, 
objects  of  a  mysterious  horror,  such  as  that  witli  which  the 
lonians  of  the  age  of  Homer  had  regarded  the  Straits  of  Scylla 
and  the  city  of  the    Lrestrygonian  cannibals.      There  was  ong 


BEFOUt:    THE    RESTORATION.  17 

'?rovince  of  ouv  island  in  which,  as  Procopius  had  been  told, 
the  ground  was  covered  with  serpents,  and  the  air  was  such  that 
no  man  could  inhale  it  and  live.  To  this  desolate  region  tlie 
spirits  of  the  departed  were  ferried  over  from  the  land  of  the 
Fronks  at  midnight.  A  strange  race  of  fishermen  performed 
the  ghastly  office.  The  speech  of  the  dead  was  distinctl}^  heard 
bj  tiie  boatmen :  their  weight  made  the  keel  sink  deep  in  the 
water ;  but  their  forms  were  invisiljle  to  mortal  eye.  Such 
were  the  marvels  which  an  able  historian,  the  contemporary  of 
Belisarius,  of  Simplicius,  and  of  Tribouian,  gravely  related  in 
the  rich  and  polite  Constantinople,  touching  the  country  in 
which  the  founder  of  Constantinople  had  assumed  the  imperial 
purple.  Concerning  all  the  other  provinces  of  the  Western 
Empire  we  have  continuous  information.  It  is  only  in  Britain 
that  an  age  of  fable  completely  separates  two  ages  of  truth. 
Odoacer  and  Totila,  Euric  and  Thrasimund,  Clovis,  Fredegunda, 
and  Brunechild,  are  historical  men  and  women.  But  Hengist 
and  Horsa,  Vortigern  and  Rowena,  Arthur  and  Mordred  are 
mythical  persons,  whose  very  existence  may  be  questioned,  and 
whose  adventures  must  be  classed  with  those  of  Hercules  and 
Romulus. 

At  length  the  darkness  begins  to  break  ;  and  the  country 
which  had  been  lost  to  view  as  Britain  reappears  as  England. 
The  conversion  of  the  Saxon  colonists  to  Christianity  was  the 
first  of  a  long  series  of  salutary  revolutions.  It  is  true  that 
the  Church  had  been  deeply  corrupted  both  by  that  superstition 
and  by  that  philosophy  against  which  she  had  long  contended, 
and  over  which  she  had  at  last  triumphed.  She  had  given  a 
too  easy  admission  to  doctrines  borrowed  from  the  ancient 
schools,  and  to  rites  borrowed  from  the  ancient  temples.  Ro- 
man policy  and  Gothic  ignorance,  Grecian  ingenuity  and  Syrian 
asceticism,  had  contributed  to  deprave  her.  Yet  she  retained 
enough  of  the  sublime  theology  and  benevolent  morality  of  her 
earlier  days  to  elevate  many  intellects,  and  to  purifv  many 
hearts.  Some  things  also  which  at  a  later  period  were  justly 
regarded  as  among  her  chief  blemishes  were,  in  the  seventh 
century,  and  long  afterwards,  p'-noiig  her  chief  merits        That 

^1i 


18  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  sacerdotal  order  should  encroach  ou  the  functions  ot  tr.e 
civil  magistrate  would,  in  our  time,  be  a  great  evil.  But  tnat 
which  in  an  age  of  good  government  is  an  evil  may,  in  an  age 
of  grossly  bad  government,  be  a  blessing.  It  is  better  that  mrm- 
kind  should  be  governed  by  wise  laws  well  administered,  and 
by  an  enlightened  })ublic  opinion,  than  by  priestcraft :  but  it  is 
better  that  men  should  be  governed  by  priestcraft  than  by  brute 
violence,  by  such  a  prelate  as  Dunstan  than  by  such  a  warrior 
as  Penda.  A  society  sunk  in  ignorance,  and  ruled  by  mere 
physical  force,  has  great  reason  to  rejoice  when  a  class,  of  which 
the  influence  is  intellectual  and  moral,  rises  to  ascendency. 
Such  a  class  will  doubtless  abuse  its  power :  but  mental  power, 
even  when  abused,  is  still  a  nobler  and  better  power  than  that 
which  consists  merely  in  coi'poreal  strength.  We  read  in  our 
Saxon  chronicles  of  tyrants,  who,  when  at  the  height  of  great- 
ness, were  smitten  with  remorse,  who  abhorred  the  pleasures 
and  dignities  which  they  liad  j^urchased  by  guilt,  who  abdicated 
their  crowns,  and  who  sought  to  atone  for  their  offences  1,)^ 
cruel  penances  and  incessant  prayers.  These  stories  have  drawn 
forth  bitter  expressions  of  contempt  from  some  writers  who, 
while  they  boasted  of  liberality,  were  in  truth  as  narrow-mind- 
ed as  any  monk  of  the  dark  ages,  and  whose  habit  was  to  apply 
to  all  events  in  the  history  of  the  world  the  standard  received  in 
the  Parisian  society  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Yet  surely  a 
svstem  which,  however  deformed  by  sui)erstition,  introduced 
strong  moral  restraints  into  communities  previously  governed 
only  by  vigour  of  muscle  and  by  audacity  of  spirit,  a  system  which 
taught  the  fiercest  and  mightiest  ruler  that  he  was,  like  his  mean- 
est bondman,  a  responsible  being,  might  have  seemed  to  deserve 
imore  respectful  mention  from  philosophers  and  philanthropists. 
The  same  observations  will  apply  to  tlie  contempt  with 
which,  in  the  last  century,  it  was  fashionable  to  speak  of  the 
pilgrimages,  the  sanctuaries,  the  crusades,  and  the  monastic 
institutions  of  the  middle  ages.  In  times  when  men  were 
scarcely  ever  induced  to  travel  by  liberal  curiosity,  or  by  the 
pursuit  of  gain,  it  was  better  that  the  rude  inhabitant  of  the 
North  should  visit  Italy  and  the  East  as  a  pilgrim,  than  that  he 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  19 

should  never  see  anything  but  those  squalid  cabins  and  un- 
cleared woods  amidst  which  he  was  born.  In  times  when  life 
and  when  female  honour  were  exposed  to  daily  risk  from  ty- 
rants and  marauders,  it  was  better  that  the  precinct  of  a  shrine 
should  be  reo-arded  with  an  irrational  awe,  than  that  there 
should  be  no  refuge  inaccessible  to  cruelty  and  licentiousness. 
In  times  when  statesmen  were  incapable  of  forming  extensive 
political  combinations,  it  was  better  tliat  the  Christian  nations 
should  be  roused  and  united  for  the  recovery  of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre,  than  that  they  should,  one  by  one,  be  overwhelmed 
by  the  Mahometan  power.  Whatever  reproach  may,  at  a 
later  period,  have  been  justly  thrown  on  the  indolence  and 
luxury  of  religious  orders,  it  was  surely  good  that,  in  an  age 
of  ignorance  and  violence,  there  should  be  quiet  cloisters  and 
gardens,  in  which  the  arts  of  peace  could  be  safely  cultivated, 
in  which  gentle  and  contemplative  natures  could  find  an 
asylum,  in  which  one  brother  could  employ  himself  in  tran- 
scribincr  the  Tii^neid  of  Yirijil,  and  another  in  meditating  the 
Analytics  of  Aristotle,  in  which  he  who  had  a  genius  for  art 
might  illuminate  a  martyi'ology  or  carve  a  crucifix,  and  in 
which  he  who  had  a  turn  for  natural  philosophy  might  make 
experiments  on  the  properties  of  plants  and  minerals.  Had 
not  such  retreats  been  scattered  here  and  there,  among  the 
huts  of  a  miserable  peasanti-y,  and  the  castles  of  a  ferocious 
aristocracy,  European  society  would  have  consisted  merely  of 
beasts  of  burden  and  beasts  of  in*ey.  The  Church  has  many 
times  been  compared  by  divines  to  the  ark  of  which  we  read 
in  the  Book  of  Genesis  :  but  never  was  the  resemblance  more 
perfect  than  during  that  evil  time  when  she  alone  rode,  amidst 
darkness  and  tempest,  on  the  deluge  beneath  which  all  the  great 
works  of  ancient  power  and  wisdom  lay  entombed,  bearing 
within  her  that  feeble  germ  from  which  a  second  and  more 
glorious  civilisation  was  to  spring. 

Even  the  spiritual  supremacy  arrogated  by  the  Pope  was, 
in  the  dark  ages,  productive  of  far  more  good  than  evil.  Its 
effect  was  to  unite  the  nations  of  Western  Europe  in  one  great 
commonwealth.     What   the  Olympian  chariot  course   and  the 


20  IIISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Pythian  oracle  were  to  all  the  Greek  cities,  from  Trebizond  to 
Marseilles,  Rome  and  her  Bishop  were  to  all  Christians  of  the 
Latin  communion,  from  Calabria  to  the  Hebrides.  Thus  grew 
up  sentiments  of  enlarged  benevolence.  Races  separated  from 
each  other  by  seas  and  mountains  acknowledged  a  fraternal  tie 
and  a  common  code  of  public  law.  Even  in  war,  the  cruelty  of 
the  conqueror  was  not  seldom  mitigated  by  the  recollection  that 
he  and  his  vanquished  enemies  were  all  members  of  one  great 
federation. 

Into  this  federation  our  Saxon  ancestors  were  now  admitted. 
A  regular  communication  was  opened  between  our  shores  and 
that  part  of  Europe  in  which  the  traces  of  ancient  power  and 
policy  were  yet  discernible.  Many  noble  monuments  which 
have  since  been  destroyed  or  defaced  still  retained  their  pris- 
tine magnificence  ;  and  travellers,  to  whom  Livy  and  Sallust 
were  unintelligible,  might  gain  from  the  Roman  aqueducts  and 
temples  some  faint  notion  of  Roman  history.  The  dome  of 
Agrippa,  still  glittering  with  bronze,  the  mausoleum  of  Adrian, 
not  yet  deprived  of  its  columns  and  statues,  the  Flavian  amphi- 
theatre, not  yet  degraded  into  a  quarry,  told  to  the  rude  English 
pilgrims  some  part  of  the  story  of  that  great  civilised  world 
which  had  j^assed  away.  The  islanders  returned,  with  awe 
deeply  impressed  on  their  half  opened  minds,  and  told  the  won- 
dering inhabitants  of  the  hovels  of  London  and  York  that,  near 
the  grave  of  Saint  Peter,  a  mighty  race,  now  extinct,  had  piled 
up  buildings  which  would  never  be  dissolved  till  the  judgment 
day.  Learning  followed  in  the  train  of  Christianity.  The 
poetry  and  eloquence  of  the  Augustan  age  was  assiduously 
studied  in  Mercian  and  Northumbrian  monasteries.  The  names 
of  Bede  and  Alcuin  were  justly  celebrated  throughout  Europe. 
Such  was  the  state  of  our  country  when,  in  the  nnith  century, 
began  the  last  great  migration  of  the  northern  barbarians. 

During  many  years  Denmark  and  Scandinavia  continued  to 
pour  forth  immmerable  pirates,  distinguished  by  strength,  by 
valour,  by  merciless  ferocity,  and  by  hatred  of  the  Christian 
name.  No  country  suffered  so  much  from  these  invaders  as 
England.     Her  coast  lay  near  to  the  ports  whence  they  sailed 


BEFORK    THK    RESTORATION.  21 

nor  was  any  shire  so  far  distant  from  tlie  sea  as  to  be  secure 
from  atta:k.  Tlie  same  atrocities  which  had  attended  the  victory 
of  tlie  Saxon  over  'the  Celt  were  now,  after  the  lapse  of  ages, 
suffered  by  the  Saxon  at  the  hand  of  the  Dane.  Civilization, 
just  as  it  began  to  rise,  was  met  by  this  blow,  and  sank  down 
once  more.  Large  colonies  of  adventurei-s  from  the  Baltic 
established  themselves  on  the  eastern  shores  of  our  island,  sjoread 
gradually  westward,  and,  supj^orted  by  constant  reinforcements 
from  I  eyond  tlie  sea,  aspired  to  the  dominion  of  the  whole  realm. 
The  straggle  between  Ihe  two  fierce  Teutonic  breeds  lasted 
through  six  generations.  Each  was  alternately  paramount. 
Cruel  massacres  followed  by  cruel  retribution,  ]>rovinces  wasted, 
convents  plundered,  and  cities  rased  to  the  ground,  make  up  the 
greater  part  of  the  history  of  those  evil  days.  At  length  the 
North  ceased  to  send  forth  a  constant  stream  of  fresh  depreda- 
tors ;  and  fi'om  that  time  the  mutual  aversion  of  the  races  be- 
gan to  subside.  Intermarriage  became  frequent.  The  Danes 
learned  the  religion  of  the  Saxons  ;  and  thus  one  cause  of  deadly 
animosity  was  removed.  The  Danish  and  Saxon  tongues,  both 
dialects  of  one  widespread  language,  were  blended  together. 
But  the  distinction  between  the  two  nations  was  by  no  means 
effaced,  when  an  event  took  place  which  prostrated  both,  in 
common  slaveiy  and  degradation,  at  the  feet  of  a  third  peoi^le. 
The  Normans  were  then  the  foremost  race  of  Christendom. 
Their  valour  and  ferocity  bad  made  them  conspicuous  among 
the  rovers  wliom  Scnndinavia  had  sent  foj'th  to  ravage  Western 
Europe.  Their  sails  were  long  tbe  terror  of  both  coasts  of  the 
Channel.  Their  arms  were  repeatedly  cai-ried  far  into  the  heart 
of  the  Carlovingian  empire,  and  were  victorious  under  the  walls 
of  Maestricht  and  Paris.  At  length  one  of  the  feeble  heirs  of 
Charlemagne  ceded  to  the  strangers  a  fertile  province,  watered 
by  a  noble  river,  and  contiguous  to  the  sea  which  was  their 
favourite  element.  In  that  province  they  founded  a  mighty  state, 
which  gradually  extended  its  influence  over  the  neighbouring 
principalities  of  Britanny  and  lyiaine.  Without  laying  aside 
that  duuntless  valour  which  had  been  the  terror  of  every  land 
from  the  Elbe  to  the  Pyrenees,  the  Normans   rapidly  acquired 


22  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

all,  and  more  than  all,  the  knowledge  and  refinement  which  they 
found  in  the  country  where  they  settled.  Their  courage  se- 
cured their  territory  against  foreign  invasion.  They  established 
internal  order,  such  as  had  long  been  unknown  in  the  Frank 
empire.  They  embraced  Christianity  ;  and  with  Christianity 
they  learned  a  great  part  of  what  the  clergy  had  to  teach. 
The}'  abandoned  their  native  speech,  and  adopted  the  French 
tongue,  in  which  the  Latin  was  the  predominant  element.  They 
speedily  raised  their  new  language  to  a  dignity  and  importance 
which  it  had  never  before  possessed.  They  found  it  a  barbarous 
jargon  ;  they  fixed  it  in  writing  ;  and  they  employed  it  in  legis- 
lation, in  poetry,  and  in  romance.  They  renounced  that  brutal 
intemperance  to  which  all  the  other  branches  of  the  great  Ger- 
man family  were  too  much  inclined.  Tlie  polite  luxury  of  the 
Norman  presented  a  striking  contrast  to  the  coarse  voracity  and 
drunkenness  of  his  Saxon  and  Danish  neighbours.  He  loved  to 
display  his  magnificence,  not  in  huge  piles  of  food  and  hogsheads 
of  strong  drink,  but  in  large  and  stately  edifices,  rich  armour, 
gallant  horses,  choice  falcons,  well  ordered  tournaments,  ban- 
quets delicate  rather  than  abundant,  and  wines  remarkable  rather 
for  their  exquisite  flavour  than  for  their  intoxicating  power. 
That  chivalrous  spirit,  which  has  exercised  so  powerful  an  in- 
fluence on  the  jjolitics,  morals,  and  manners  of  all  the  Euro- 
pean nations,  was  found  in  the  highest  exaltation  among  the 
Norman  nobles.  Those  nobles  were  distinguished  by  their 
graceful  bearing  and  insinuating  address.  They  were  distin- 
guished also  by  their  skill  in  negotiation,  and  by  a  natural  elo- 
quence which  they  assiduously  cultivated.  It  was  the  boast  of 
one  of  their  historians  that  the  Norman  gentlemen  were  orators 
from  the  cradle.  But  their  chief  fame  was  derived  from  their 
military  exploits.  Every  country,  from  the  Atlantic  Ocean  to 
the  Dead  Sea,  witnessed  the  prodigies  of  their  discii^line  and 
valour.  One  Norman  knight,  at  the  head  of  a  handful  of  war- 
riors, scattered  the  Celts  of  Connaught.  Another  founded  the 
monarchy  of  the  Two  Sicilies,  and  saw  the  emperors  both  of 
the  East  and  of  the  West  fly  before  his  arms.  A  thtrd,  the 
l^lygses  of  the  first  crusade,  was  invested  by  his  fellow  soldiers 


BEFOUt:    THE    RESTORATION.  23 

with  the  sovereignty  of  Antioch;  and  a  fourth,  the  Tancred 
whose  name  lives  in  the  great  poem  of  Tasso,  was  celebrated 
tlirougli  Christendom  as  the  bravest  and  most  generous  of  the 
deliverers  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre. 

The  vicinity  of  so  remarkable  a  people  early  began  to  pro- 
duce an  effect  on  the  public  mind  of  England.  Before  the 
Conquest,  English  princes  received  their  education  in  Norman- 
dy. English  sees  and  English  estates  were  bestowed  on  Nor- 
mans. The  French  of  Normandy  was  familiarly  spoken  in  the 
palace  of  Westminster.  The  court  of  Rouen  seems  to  have  been 
to  the  court  of  Edward  the  Confessor  what  the  court  of  Ver- 
sailles loasr  afterwards  was  to  the  court  oi  Charles  the  Second. 

The  battle  of  Hastings,  and  the  events  which  followed  it, 
not  only  placed  a  Duke  of  Normandy  on  the  English  throne, 
but  gave  up  the  whole  population  of  England  to  the  tyranny  of 
the  Norman  race.  The  subjugation  of  a  nation  by  a  nation 
has  seldom,  even  in  Asia,  been  more  complete.  The  country 
was  portioned  out  among  ihe  captains  of  the  invaders.  Strong 
military  institutions,  closely  connected  with  the  institution  of 
property,  enabled  the  foreign  conquerors  to  oppress  the  children 
of  the  soil.  A  cruel  penal  code,  cruelly  enforced,  guarded  the 
privileges,  and  even  the  sports,  of  the  alien  tyrants.  Yet  the 
subject  race,  though  beaten  down  and  trodden  under  foot,  still 
made  its  sting  felt.  Some  bold  men,  the  favourite  heroes  of  our 
oldest  ballads,  betook  themselves  to  the  woods,  and  there,  in  de- 
fiance of  curfew  laws  and  forest  laws,  waged  a  predatory  war 
against  their  oppressors.  Assassination  was  an  event  of  daily 
occurrence.  Many  Normans  suddenly  disappeared  leaving  no 
trace.  The  corpses  of  many  were  found  bearing  the  marks  of  vio- 
lence. Death  by  torture  was  denounced  against  the  murderers, 
and  strict  search  was  made  for  them,  but  generally  in  vain ;  for 
the  whole  nation  was  in  a  conspiracy  to  sci-een  them.  It  was 
at  length  thought  necessary  to  lay  a  heavy  fine  on  every  Hun- 
dre.l  in  which  a  person  of  French  extraction  sliould  be  found 
slain  ;  and  this  regulation  was  followed  up  by  another  r  'gulation, 
providing  that  every  person  who  was  found  slain  should  be  sup* 
posed  to  be  a  Frenchman,  unless  he  was  proved  to  be  a  Saxon. 


24  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

During  the  century  and  a,  half  which  followed  the  Cv>Qques^, 
there  is,  to  speak  strictly,  no  English  historj'.  The  French 
Kings  of  England  rose,  indeed,  to  nn  eminence  which  was  the 
wonder  and  dread  of  all  neighbouring  nations.  They  conquered 
Ireland.  They  received  the  homage  of  Scotland.  By  their 
valour,  by  their  policy,  by  their  fortunate  matrimonial  alliances, 
they  became  far  more  popular  on  the  Continent  than  their  liege 
lords  the  Kings  of  France.  Asia,  as  well  as  Europe,  was  daz- 
zled by  the  power  and  glory  of  our  tyrants.  Arabian  chroni- 
clers recorded  with  unwilling  admiration  the  fall  of  Acre,  the 
defence  of  Joppa,  and  the  victorious  march  to  Ascalon  ;  and 
Arabian  mothers  long  awed  their  infants  to  silence  with  the 
name  of  the  liouhearted  Planta<jenet.  At  one  time  it  seemed 
that  the  line  of  Hugh  Capet  was  about  to  end  as  the  Merovin- 
gian and  Ciirlovingiau  lines  had  ended,  and  that  a  single  great 
monarchy  would  spread  from  the  Orkneys  to  the  Pyrenees. 
So  strong  an  association  is  established  in  most  minds  between 
the  greatness  of  a  sovereign  and  the  greatness  of  the  nation 
which  he  rules,  that  almost  every  historian  of  England  has  ex- 
patiated with  a  sentiment  of  exultation  on  the  power  and  splen- 
dour of  her  foreign  masters,  and  has  lamented  the  decay  of  that 
power  and  splendour  as  a  calamity  to  our  country.  This  is,  in 
truth,  as  absurd  as  it  would  be  in  a  Haytian  negro  of  our  time 
to  dwell  with  national  pride  on  the  greatness  of  Lewis  the 
Fourteenth,  and  to  speak  of  Blenheim  and  Ramilies  with  patri- 
otic regret  and  shame.  The  Conqueror  and  his  descendants  to  th& 
fourth  generation  were  not  Englishmen  :  most  of  them  were  born 
in  France  :  they  spent  the  greater  j^art  of  their  lives  in  France  : 
their  ordinary  speech  was  French :  almost  every  high  office  in 
their  gift  was  filled  by  a  Frenchman  :  every  acquisition  which 
they  made  on  the  Continent  estranged  them  more  and  more 
from  the  population  of  our  island.  One  of  the  ablest  among 
them  indeed  attempted  to  win  the  hearts  of  his  English  subjects 
by  espousing  an  English  princess.  But,  by  many  of  his  barons, 
this  marriage  was  regarded  as  a  marringe  between  a  white  plan- 
ter and  a  quadroon  girl  would  novv'  be  regarded  in  Virginia.  In 
history  he   is  known  by  the  honourable  surname  of  Beauclerc; 


BEFORE    THE    HESTORATION.  25 

but.  in  liis  own  time,  his  own  counti-ymen  called  him  by  a  Saxon 
iiidj-name,  in  contemptuous  allusion  to  his  Saxon  connection. 

Had  the  Plantagenets,  as  at  one  time  seemed  likely,  suc- 
ceeded in  uniting  all  France  under  their  government,  it  is  prob- 
able that  England  would  never  have  had  an  independent  exist- 
ence.  Her  princes,  her  lords,  her  prelates,  would  have  been 
men  differing  iu  race  and  language  from  the  artisans  and  tho 
tillers  of  the  earth.  The  revenues  of  lier  great  proprietors 
would  have  been  spent  in  festivities  and  diversions  on  the  banks 
o£  the  Seine.  The  noble  language  of  Milton  and  Burke  would 
have  remained  a  rustic  dialect,  witliout  a  literature,  a  fixed  gram- 
mar, or  a  iixed  orthograpliy,  and  would  have  been  contemptuously 
abi«  idoned  to  the  use  of  boors.  No  man  of  English  extraction 
wo-  Id  have  risen  to  eminence,  except  by  becoming  in  speech  and 
hal  its  a  Frenchman. 

Encrland  owes  her  escai:)e  from  such  calamities  to  an  event 
which  her  historians  have  generally  represented  as  disastrous. 
Her  interest  was  so  directly  opposed  to  the  interests  of  her 
rulers  that  she  had  no  hope  but  iu  their  errors  and  misfortunes. 
The  talents  and  even  the  virtues  of  her  first  six  French  Kings 
were  a  curse  to  her.  The  follies  and  vices  of  the  seventh  were 
her  salvation.  Had  John  inherited  the  great  qualities  of  his 
father,  of  Henry  Beauclerc,  or  of  the  Conqueror,  nay,  had  lie 
even  possessed  the  martial  courage  of  Stephen  or  of  Richard, 
and  had  the  King  of  France  at  the  same  time  been  as  incapable 
as  all  the  other  successors  of  Hugh  Capet  had  been,  t!ie  House 
of  Plantagenet  must  have  risen  to  unrivalled  ascendency  in  Eu- 
rope. But,  just  at  tliis  conjuncture,  France,  for  the  first  time 
since  the  death  of  Ciiarlemagne,  w  is  governed  by  a  prince  of 
great  firmness  and  ability.  On  the  other  hand  England,  which, 
since  the  battle  of  Hastings,  had  been  ruled  genei'ally  by  wise 
statesmen,  always  by  brave  soldiers,  fell  under  the  dominion  of 
a  trifler  and  a  coward.  From  that  moment  her  prospects 
brightened.  John  was  driven  from  Normandy.  The  Norman 
nobles  were  compelled  to  make  their  election  between  the  island 
and  the  continent.  Shut  uj?  by  the  sea  with  the  people  whom 
they  had  liit.herto  oppressed  and  despised,  they  gradually  came  to 


26  HISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND. 

regard  England  as  tlieir  country,  and  the  English  as  their  coun- 
trymen. The  two  races,  so  long  hostile,  soon  found  that  they 
had  common  interests  and  common  enemies.  Both  were  alike 
aggrieved  by  the  tyranny  of  a  bad  king.  Both  were  alike 
indignant  at  the  favour  shown  by  the  court  to  the  natives  of 
Poitou  and  Aquitaine.  Tlie  greatgrandsons  of  those  who  had 
fought  under  William  and  the  greatgrandsons  of  those  who  had 
fought  under  Harold  began  to  draw  near  to  each  other  ia 
friendship  ;  and  the  first  pledge  of  their  reconciliation  was  the 
Great  Charter,  won  by  their  united  exertions,  and  framed  for 
their  common  benefit. 

Here  commences  the  history  of  the  English  nation.  The 
history  of  the  preceding  events  is  the  history  of  wrongs  inflict- 
ed and  sustained  by  various  tribes,  which  indeed  all  dwelt  on 
English  ground,  but  which  regarded  each  other  with  aversion 
such  as  has  scarcely  ever  existed  between  communities  separa- 
ted by  2:)hysical  barriers.  For  even  the  mutual  animosity  of 
countries  at  war  with  each  other  is  languid  when  compared  with 
the  animosity  of  nations  which,  morally  separated,  are  yet  local- 
ly intermingled.  In  no  country  has  the  enmity  of  race  been 
carried  farther  than  in  England.  In  no  country  has  that  enmity 
lieen  more  completely  effaced.  The  stages  of  the  process  by 
vvliich  the  hostile  elements  were  melted  down  into  one  homoge- 
neous mass  are  not  accurately  known  to  us.  But  it  is  certain 
that,  v,'hen  John  became  King,  the  distinction  between  Saxons 
and  Normans  was  strongly  marked,  and  that  before  the  end  of 
the  reign  of  his  grandson  it  had  almost  disappeared.  In  the 
time  of  Richard  the  First,  the  ordinary  imprecation  of  a  Nor- 
man gentleman  was  "  May  I  become  an  Englishman  !  "  His 
ordinary  form  of  indignant  denial  was  "  Do  3'ou  take  me  for  an 
Englishman  ?  "  The  descendant  of  such  a  gentleman  a  hundred 
years  later  was  proud  of  the  English  name. 

The  sources  of  the  noblest  rivers  wliich  spread  fertility  over 
continents,  and  bear  richly  laden  fleets  to  the  sea,  are  to  be  sought 
in  wild  and  barren  mountain  tracts,  incorrectly  laid  down  in 
maps,  and  rarely  explored  by  travellers.  To  such  a  tract  the 
history  of  our  country  during  the   thirteenth  century  may  not 


BKFORE    Till-:    RESTORATION.  27 

anaptly  be  compared.  Sterile  and  obscure  as  is  that  portion  of 
our  anuals,  itis  there  that  we  must  seek  for  the  origin  of  our 
freedom,  our  prosperity,  and  our  glory.  Then  it  was  that  the 
great  English  peojile  was  formed,  that  the  national  character  be- 
gan to  exhibit  those  peculiarities  which  it  has  ever  since  retain- 
ed, and  that  our  fathers  became  emphatically  islanders,  islanders 
not  merely  in  geographical  position,  but  in  their  politics, 
their  feelings,  and  their  manners.  Then  first  appeared  with  dis- 
tinctness that  constitution  which  has  ever  since,  through  all 
changes,  preserved  its  identity  ;  that  constitution  of  which  all 
the  other  free  constitutions  in  the  world  are  copies,  and  which, 
in  spite  of  some  defects,  deserves  to  be  regarded  as  the  best  un- 
der which  any  great  society  has  ever  yet  existed  during  many 
ages.  Then  it  was  that  the  House  of  Commons,  the  archetype 
of  all  the  representative  assemblies  which  now  meet,  either  in 
the  old  or  in  the  new  world,  held  its  first  sittings.  Then  it 
was  that  the  common  law  rose  to  the  dignity  of  a  science,  and 
rapidly  became  a  not  unworthy  rival  of  the  imperial  jurisprudence. 
Then  it  was  that  the  couracre  of  those  sailors  who  manned  the 
rude  barks  of  the  Cinque  Ports  first  made  the  flag  of  England 
terrible  on  the  seas.  Then  it  was  that  the  most  ancient  collejjes 
which  still  exist  at  both  the  great  national  seats  of  learning  were 
founded.  Then  was  formed  that  language,  less  musical  indeed 
than  the  languages  of  the  south,  but  in  force,  in  richness,  in  ap- 
titude for  all  the  highest  purposes  of  the  poet,  the  philosopher, 
and  the  orator,  inferior  to  the  tongue  of  Greece  alone.  Then 
too  appeared  the  first  faint  dawn  of  that  noble  literature,  the  most 
splendid  and  the  most  durable  of  the  many  glories  of  England. 
Early  in  the  fourteenth  century  the  amalgamation  of  the 
races  was  all  but  complete  ;  and  it  was  soon  made  manifest,  by 
signs  not  to  be  mistaken,  that  a  people  inferior  to  none  ex- 
isting in  the  world  had  been  formed  by  the  mixture  of  three 
branches  of  the  great  Teutonic  family  with  each  other,  and  with 
the  aboriginal  Britons.  There  was,  indeed,  scarcely  any  thing 
in  common  between  the  England  to  which  John  had  been 
chased  by  Philip  Augustus,  and  the  England  from  which  the 
armies  of  Edward  the  Third  went  forth  to  conquer  France. 


28  HISTORY    OF    ENGLA.ND. 

A  period  of  more  than  a  hundred  years  followed,  during 
which  the  chief  object  of  the  English  was  to  establish,  by  force 
of  arms,  a  great  empire  on  the  Continent.  The  claim  of  Edward 
to  the  inheritance  occupied  by  the  House  of  Valois  was  a  claim 
in  which  it  might  seem  that  his  suojects  were  little  interested. 
Hut  the  passion  for  conquest  spread  fast  from  the  prince  to  the 
people.  The  war  differed  widely  from  the  wars  which  the  Plan- 
tageiiets  of  the  tw^elfth  century  had  waged  against  the  descend- 
ants of  Hugh  Capet.  For  the  success  of  Henry  the  Second,  or 
of  'Richard  the  First,  would  have  made  England  a  province  of 
France.  The  effect  of  the  successes  of  Edward  the  Third  and 
Henry  the  Fifth  was  to  make  France,  for  a  time,  a  province  of 
P2ngland.  The  disdain  with  which,  in  the  twelfth  century,  the 
conrpierors  from  the  Continent  had  regarded  the  islanders,  was 
now  retorted  by  the  islanders  on  the  people  of  the  Continent. 
Every  yeoman  from  Kent  to  Northumberland  valued  himself  as 
one  of  a  race  born  for  victory  and  dominion,  and  looked  down 
with  scorn  on  the  nation  before  which  his  ancestors  had  trem- 
bled. Even  those  knights  of  Gascony  and  Guiemie  who  had 
fought  gallantly  under  tlie  Black  Prince  were  regarded  by  the 
Englisli  as  men  of  an  ii;ferior  breed,  and  were  contemptuously  ex- 
cluded from  honourable  and  lucrative  commands.  In  no  long 
time  our  ancestors  altogether  lost  sight  of  the  original  ground  of 
quarrel.  They  began  to  consider  the  crown  of  France  as  a  mere 
appoKlage  to  the  crown  of  p:ngland  ;  and,  when  in  violation  of 
the  ordinaiy  law  of  succession,  they  transfei-red  the  crown  of 
England  to  the  House  of  Lancaster,  they  seem  to  have  thought 
that  the  right  of  Richard  the  Second  t.o  the  crown  of  France 
passed,  as  of  course,  to  that  house.  The  zeal  and  vigour  which 
they  displayed  present  a  remarkable  contrast  to  the  torpor  of  the 
French,  who  were  far  more  deeply  interested  in  the  event  of 
the  struggle.  The  most  splendid  victories  recorded  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  middle  ages  were  gained  at  this  time,  against  great 
odds,  by  the  English  armies.  Victories  indeed  they  were  of 
whicli  a  nation  may  jn^th  be  proud  ;  for  they  are  to  be  attribu- 
ted to  the  rnon'l  supei-iority  of  the,  \icto)-s.  a  superiority  which 
was  most  strikintj  in  th'^  lowr^st  ra-iks.     'i"li;'  knicfhtsof  Fnirlan(5 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  29 

found  worthy  rivals  in  the  knights  of  France.  Chandos  eiv 
countered  an  equal  foe  in  Du  Guesclin.  But  France  had  no 
infantry  that  dared  to  face  the  English  bows  and  bills.  A 
French  King  was  brought  prisoner  to  London.  An  English 
Kinof  was  crowned  at  Paris.  The  banner  of  St.  Georofo  was 
I'arried  far  beyond  the  Pyrenees  and  the  Alps.  On  the  south 
■)f  the  Ebro  the  English  won  a  great  battle,  which  for  a  time 
ilecided  the  fate  of  Leon  and  Castile  ;  and  the  English  Com- 
panies obtained  a  terrible  preeminence  among  the  bands  of 
warriors  who  let  out  tlieir  weapons  for  hire  to  tlie  princes  and 
commonwealths  of  Italy. 

Nor  were  the  arts  of  peace  neglected  by  our  fathers  dui-ing 
that  stirring  period.  While  France  was  wasted  by  war,  till 
she  at  length  found  in  her  own  desolation  a  miserable  defence 
against  invaders,  the  English  gathered  in  their  harvests,  adorned 
their  cities,  jdeaded,  traded,  aud  studied  in  securitj'.  Many 
of  our  noblest  architectural  monuments  belonjx  to  that  aae. 
Then  rose  the  fair  chapels  of  New  College  and  of  Saint  George, 
the  nave  of  Winchester  and  the  choir  of  York,  the  spire  of 
Salisbury  and  the  majestic  tovv'ers  of  Lincoln.  A  copious  and 
forcible  language,  formed  by  an  infusion  of  French  into  Ger- 
man, was  now  the  common  property  of  the  aristocracy  and  of 
the  people.  Nor  was  it  long  before  genius  began  to  apply  that 
admirable  machine  to  worthy  purposes.  While  English  war- 
riors, leaving  behind  them  the  devastated  provinces  of  France, 
entered  Valladolld  in  triumph,  and  spread  terror  to  the  gates 
of  Florence,  English  poets  de]^icted  in  vivid  tints  all  the  wide 
variety  of  human  manners  and  fortunes,  and  English  thinkers 
aspired  to  know,  or  dared  to  doubt,  where  bigots  had  been  con- 
tent to  wonder  and  to  believe.  The  saine  age  which  produced 
the  Black  Prince  and  Derby,  Chandos  nnd  Ilawkwood,  pro- 
duced also  Geoffrey  Chaucer  and  John  Wycliffe. 

Li  so  splendid  and  imperial  a  manner  did  the  English 
people,  properly  so  called,  first  take  place  among  the  nations 
of  the  world.  Yet  while  we  contemplate  with  ple^isure  the 
high  and  commanding  qualities  which  our  forefathers  displayed, 
we  cannot  but  admit  that  the   end  which    tlie_y  pursued  was  an 


30  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND, 

end  condemned  both  by  humanity  and  by  enlightened  iDoliey, 
and  that  the  reverses  which  compelled  them,  after  a  long  and 
bloody  struggle,  to  relinquish  the  hope  of  establishing  a  great 
continental  empire,  were  really  blessings  in  the  guise  of  disas- 
ters. The  spirit  of  the  French  was  at  last  aroused :  they  be- 
gan to  oppose  a  vigorous  national  resistance  to  the  foreign 
conquerors ;  and  from  that  time  the  skill  of  the  English  cap- 
tains and  the  courage  of  the  English  soldiers  were,  happily  for 
mankind,  exerted  in  vain.  After  many  desperate  struggles, 
and  with  many  bitter  regrets,  our  ancestors  gave  up  the  contest. 
Since  that  age  no  British  government  has  ever  seriously  and 
steadily  pursued  the  design  of  making  great  conquests  on  the 
Continent.  The  people,  indeed,  continued  to  cherish  with  pride 
the  recollection  of  Cressy,  of  Poitiers,  and  of  Agincourt.  Even 
after  the  lapse  of  many  years  it  was  easy  to  fire  their  blood  and 
to  draw'  forth  their  subsidies  by  promising  them  an  expedition 
for  the  conquest  of  France.  But  happily  the  energies  of  our 
country  have  been  directed  to  better  objects  ;  and  she  now 
occupies  in  the  history  of  mankind  a  j^lace  far  more  glorious 
than  if  she  had,  as  at  one  time  seemed  not  improbable,  acquired 
by  the  sword  an  ascendency  similar  to  that  which  formerly  be- 
longed to  the  Roman  republic. 

Cooped  up  once  more  within  the  limits  of  the  island,  the 
warlike  people  employed  in  civil  strife  those  arms  which  had 
been  the  terror  of  Europe.  The  means  of  profuse  expenditure 
had  long  been  drawn  by  the  English  barons  from  the  oppressed 
provinces  of  France.  That  source  of  supply  was  gone  :  but 
the  ostentatious  and  luxurious  habits  which  prosperity  had 
engendered  still  remained  ;  and  the  great  lords,  unable  to  grati- 
fy their  tastes  by  plundering  the  French,  were  eagCB-.to  plunder 
each  other.  The  realm  to  which  they  were  now  confined  would 
not,  in  the  phrase  of  Comines,  the  most  judicious  observer  of 
that  time,  suffice  for  them  all.  Two  aristocratical  factions, 
headed  by  two  branches  of  the  royal  family,  engaged  in  a  long 
and  fierce  struggle  for  supremacy.  As  the  animosity  of  those 
factions  did  not  really  arise  from  the  dispute  about  the  succes  ■ 
sion,  it  lasted  long  after  all  ground  of  dispute  about  the  succes- 


BEKORE    THE    RESTORATION.  31 

sion  was  removed.  The  party  of  the  Red  Rose  survivetl  the 
last  prince  who  daimed  the  crown  in  right  of  Henry  the  Fourth. 
The  party  of  the  Wliite  Rose  survived  the  marriage  of  Ricli- 
mond  and  Elizabeth.  Left  without  chiefs  who  had  any  decent 
show  of  riirht,  the  adherents  of  Lancaster  rallied  round  a  line 
of  bastards,  and  the  adherents  of  York  set  up  a  succession  of 
impostors.  When,  at  length,  many  aspiring  nobles  had  perished 
on  the  field  of  battle  or  by  the  hands  of  the  executionei-,  when 
many  illustrious  houses  had  disappeared  forever  from  history, 
when  those  preat  families  which  remained  had  been  exhausted 
and  sobered  by  calamities,  it  was  universally  acknowledged  that 
the  claims  of  all  the  contending  Plantagenets  were  united  in 
the  house  of  Tudor. 

Meanwhile  a  change  was  proceeding  infinitely  more  mo- 
mentous than  the  acquisition  or  loss  of  any  province,  than  the 
rise  or  fall  of  any  dynasty.  Slavery  and  the  evils  by  which 
slavery  is  everywhere  accompanied  v/ere  fast  disappearing. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  two  greatest  and  most  salutary 
social  revolutions  which  have  taken  place  in  England,  that 
revolution  which,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  put  an  end  to  the 
tyranny  of  nation  over  nation,  and  that  revolution  which,  a  few 
generations  later,  put  an  end  to  the  property  of  man  in  man, 
were  silently  and  imperceptibly  effected.  They  struck  contem- 
porary observers  with  no  surprise,  and  have  received  from  his- 
torians a  very  scanty  measure  of  attention.  They  were  brought 
about  neither  by  legislative  regulations  nor  by  physical  force. 
Moral  causes  noiselessly  effaced  first  the  distinction  between 
Norman  and  Saxon,  and  then  the  distinction  between  master 
and  slave.  None  can  venture  to  fix  the  precise  moment  at 
which  either  distinction  ceased.  Some  faint  traces  of  the  old 
Norman  feeling  might  perhaps  have  been  found  late  in  tlie 
fourteenth  century.  Some  faint  traces  of  the  institution  of  vil- 
lenage  were  detected  by  the  curious  so  late  as  the  days  of  the 
Stuarts  ;  nor  has  that  institution  ever,  to  this  hour,  been  abol- 
ished by  statute. 

It  would  be  most  unjust  not  to  acknowledge  that  the  chief 
agent  iu  these  two  great  deliverances  was  religion  ;  and  it  may 


32  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

perhaps  be  doubted  whether  a  purer  religiou  might  not  have 
been  t'ouud  a  less  elHcient  agent.  The  benevolent  spirit  of  the 
Christian  morality  is  undoubtedly  adverse  to  distinctions  of 
caste.  But  to  the  Church  of  Rome  such  distinctions  are  pecu- 
liarly odious  ;  for  they  are  incompatible  with  other  distinctions 
which  are  essential  to  her  system.  She  ascribes  to  every  prit  sL 
a  mysterious  dignity  which  entitles  him  to  the  reverence  ci: 
every  layman  ;  and  she  does  not  consider  any  man  as  disqualified, 
by  reason  of  his  nation  or  of  his  family,  for  the  priesthood. 
Her  doctrines  respecting  the  sacerdotal  character,  however 
erroneous  they  may  be,  have  repeatedly  mitigated  some  of  the 
worst  evils  which  can  afuict  society.  That  superstition  cannot 
be  regarded  as  unmixedly  noxious  which,  in  regions  cursed  by 
the  tyranny  of  race  over  race,  creates  an  aristocracy  altogether 
independent  of  race,  inverts  the  relation  between  the  oppressor 
and  the  oppressed,  and  compels  the  hereditary  master  to  kneel 
before  the  spiritual  tribunal  of  the  hereditary  bondman.  To 
this  daj^,  in  some  countries  where  negro  slavery  exists,  Popery 
appears  in  advantageous  contrast  to  other  forms  of  Christianity. 
It  is  notorious  that  the  antipathy  between  the  European  and 
Af ric;in  races  is  l>y  no  means  so  strong  •  at  Rio  Janerio  as  at 
Wash.ington.  In  our  own  country  this  peculiarity  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  system  produced,  during  the  middle  ages,  many  salutary 
effects.  It  is  true  that,  shortly  after  the  battle  of  Hastings, 
Saxon  prelates  and  abbots  were  violently  deposed,  and  that 
ecclesiastical  adventurers  from  the  Continent  were  intruded  by 
hundreds  into  lucrative  benefices.  Yet  even  then  pious  divines 
of  Norman  l)jood  raised  their  voices  against  such  a  violation  of 
the  constitution  of  the  Church,  refused  to  accept  mitres  from 
the  hands  of  William,  and  charged  him,  on  the  peril  of  his  soul, 
not  to  forget  that  the  vanquished  islanders  were  his  fellow 
Christians.  The  first  protector  whom  the  Ensflish  found  amouir 
the  dominant  caste  was  Archbishop  Anselm.  At  a  time  when 
the  English  name  was  a  reproach,  and  when  all  the  civil  and 
military  dignities  of  the  kingdom  were  supposed  to  belong 
exclusively  to  the  countrymen  of  ths  Conqueror,  the  despised 
race  learned,  with  transports  of  de^'^ht,  that  one  of  themselves, 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION,  33 

Nicholas  Breakspear,  had  beeu  elevated  to  the  papal  throne, 
and  had  held  out  his  foot  to  be  kissed  'by  ambassadors  sprung 
from  the  noblest  houses  of  Normandy.  It  was  a  nationtil  as 
well  as  a  religious  feeling  that  drew  great  multitudes  to  the 
shrine  of  Becket,  whom  they  regarded  as  the  enemy  of  their 
enemies.  Whether  he  was  a  Norman  or  a  Saxon  may  be 
doubted :  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  perished  by  Norman 
hands,  and  that  the  Saxons  cherished  his  memory  with  peculiar 
tenderness  and  veneration,  and,  in  their  popular  poetry,  repre- 
sented him  as  one  of  their  own  race.  A  successor  of  Becket 
was  foremost  among  the  refractory  magnates  who  obtained  that 
charter  which  secured  the  privileges  both  of  the  Norman  barons 
and  of  the  Saxon  yeomanry.  How  great  a  part  the  Roman 
Catholic  ecclesiastics  subsequently  had  in  the  abolition  of  villen- 
age  we  learn  from  the  unexceptionable  testimony  of  Sir  Thomas 
Smith,  one  of  the  ablest  Protestant  counsellors  of  Elizabeth. 
When  the  dying  slaveholder  asked  for  the  last  sacraments,  his 
spiritual  attendants  regularly  adjured  him,  as  he  loved  his  soul, 
to  emancipate  his  brethren  for  whom  Christ  had  died.  So  suc- 
cessfully had  the  Church  used  her  formidable  machinery  that, 
before  the  Reformation  came,  she  had  enfranchised  almost  all 
the  bondmen  in  the  kingdom  except  her  own,  who,  to  do  her 
justice,  seem  to  have  been  very  tenderly  treated. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  when  these  two  great  revolu- 
tions had  been  effected,  our  forefathers  were  by  far  the  best 
governed  people  in  Europe.  During  three  hundred  years  the 
social  system  had  been  in  a  constant  course  of  improvement. 
Under  the  first  Plautagenets  there  had  been  barons  able  to  bid 
defiance  to  the  sovereign,  and  peasants  degraded  to  the  level  of 
the  swine  and  oxen  which  they  tended.  The  exorbitant  power 
of  the  baron  had  been  gradually  reduced.  The  condition  of  the 
peasant  had  been  gradually  elevated.  Between  the  aristocracy 
and  the  working  people  had  sprung  up  a  middle  class,  agricul- 
tural and  commercial.  There  was  still,  it  may  be,  more  in- 
equality than  is  favourable«to  the  happiness  and  virtue  of  our 
species  :  but  no  man  was  altogether  above  the  restraints  of  law  ; 
and  no  man  was  altogether  below  its  protection. 


34  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

That  the  political  institutions  of  England  were,  at  this  early 
period,  regarded  by  the  English  with  pride  and  affection,  and 
by  the  most  enlightened  men  of  neighbouring  nations  with 
admiration  and  envy,  is  proved  by  the  clearest  evidence.  But 
touching  the  nature  of  these  institutions  there  has  been  much 
dishonest  and  acrimonious  controversey. 

The  historical  literature  of  England  has  indeed  suffered 
grievously  from  a  circumstance  M^hich  has  not  a  little  contributed 
to  her  prosperity.  The  change,  great  as  it  is,  which  her  polity 
has  undergone  during  the  last  six  centuries,  has  been  the  effect 
of  gradual  development,  not  of  demolition  and  reconstruction. 
The  present  constitution  of  our  country  is,  to  the  constitution 
under  vhich  she  flourished  five  hundred  years  ago,  what  the 
tree  is  to  the  sapling,  what  the  man  is  to  the  boy.  The  altera- 
tion has  been  great.  Yet  there  never  was  a  moment  at  which 
the  chief  part  of  what  exifeted  was  not  old.  A  polity  thus 
formed  must  abound  in  anomalies.  But  for  the  evils  arising 
from  mere  anomalies  we  have  ample  compensation.  Other 
societies  possess  written  constitutions  more  symmetrical.  But 
no  other  society  has  yet  succeeded  in  uniting  revolution  with 
prescription,  progress  with  stability,  the  energy  of  youth  with 
the  majesty  of  immemorial  antiquity. 

This  great  blessing,  however  has  its  drawbacks  :  and  ons 
of  those  drawbacks  is  that  every  source  of  information  as  to 
our  early  history  has  been  poisoned  by  party  spirit.  A"S  there 
is  no  country  where  statesmen  have  been  so  much  under  the 
influence  of  the  past,  so  there  is  no  country  where  historians 
have  been  so  much  under  the  influence  of  the  present.  Between 
these  two  tilings,  indeed,  there  is  a  natural  connection.  Whera 
history  is  regarded  merely  as  a  picture  of  life  and  manners,  or 
as  a  collection  of  experiments  from  which  general  maxims  of 
civil  wisdom  may  be  drawn,  a  writer  lies  under  no  very  pressing 
temptation  to  misrepresent  transactions  of  ancient  date.  But 
where  history  is  regarded  as  a  repository  of  titledeeds,  on  which 
the  rights  of  governments  and  nations  depend,  the  motive  to 
falsification  becomes  almost  irresistalftle.  A  Frenchman  is  not 
now  impelled  by  any  strong  interest  either  to  exaggerate  or  to 


BEFORE  THE  RESTORATION.  35 

underrate  the  powers  of  the  Kings  of  the  house  of  Valois.  The 
privileges  of  the  States  General,  of  the  States  of  Brittany,  of 
the  States  of  Burgundy,  are  to  him  matters  of  as  little  practical 
importance  as  the  constitution  of  the  Jewish  Sanhedrim  or  of 
the  Amphictyonic  Council.  The  gulph  of  a  great  revolution 
completely  separates  the  new  from  the  old  system.  No  such 
chasm  divides  the  existence  of  the  English  nation  into  two 
distinct  parts.  Our  laws  and  customs  have  never  been  lost  in 
general  and  irreparable  ruin.  Witli  us  the  precedents  of  the 
middle  ages  are  still  valid  precedents,  and  are  still  cited,  on  the 
gravest  occasions,  by  the  most  eminent  statesmen.  For  example, 
when  King  George  the  Third  was  attacked  by  the  malady 
which  made  him  incapable  of  performing  his  regal  functions, 
and  when  the  most  distinguished  lawyers  and  politicians  differed 
widely  as  to  the  course  which  ought,  in  such  circumstances,  to 
be  pursued,  the  Houses  of  Parliament  would  not  proceed  to 
discuss  any  plan  of  regency  till  all  the  precedents  which  were 
to  be  found  in  our  annals,  from  the  earliest  times,  had  been 
collected  and  arranged.  Committees  were  appointed  to  examine 
the  ancient  records  of  the  realm.  The  first  case  reported  was 
that  of  the  year  1217  :  much  importance  was  attached  to  the 
cases  of  1326, .of  1377,  and  of  1422 :  but  the  case  which  was 
justly  considered  as  most  in  point  was  that  of  1455.  Thus  in 
our  country  the  dearest  interests  of  parties  have  frequently  been 
staked  on  the  results  of  the  researches  of  antiquaries.  The  in- 
evitable consequence  was  that  om  antiquaries  conducted  their 
researches  in  the  spirit  of  partisans. 

It  is  therefore  not  surprising  that  those  who  have  written, 
concerning  the  limits  of  perogative  and  liberty  in'the  old  polity 
of  England  should  generally  have  shown  the  temper,  not  of 
judges,  but  of  angry  and  uiicandid  advocates.  For  they  were 
discussing,  not  a  speculative  matter,  but  a  matter  which  had  a 
direct  and  practical  connection  with  the  most  momentous  and 
excitin<?  disputes  of  their  own  day.  From  the  commencement 
of  the  long  contest  between  the  Parliament  and  the  Stuarts 
down  to  the  time  when  the  pretensions  of  the  Stuarts  ceased 
to  be  formidable,  few  questions  were  practically  more  important 


36  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

than  the  question  whether  the  administration  of  that  family  had 
or  had  not  been  in  accordance  with  the  ancient  constitution  of 
the  kingdom.  This  question  could  be  decided  only  b}^  reference 
to  the  records  of  preceding  reigns.  Bracton  and  Fleta,  the 
Mirror  of  Justice  and  the  Rolls  of  Parliament,  were  ran- 
sacked to  find  pretexts  for  the  excesses  of  the  Star  Chamber 
on  one  side,  and  of  the  High  Court  of  Justice  on  the  other. 
During  a  long  course  of  years  every  Whig  historian  was  anx- 
ious to  prove  that  the  old  English  government  was  all  but 
republican,  every  Tory  historian  to  prove  that  it  was  all  but 
despotic. 

With  such  feelings,  both  parties  looked  into  the  chi'onicles 
of  the  middle  ages.  Both  readily  found  what  they  sought  ; 
and  both  obstinately  refused  to  see  anything  but  what  they 
sought.  The  champions  of  the  Stuarts  could  easily  point  out 
instances  of  oppression  exercised  on  the  subject.  'The  defend- 
ers of  the  Roundheads  could  as  easily  produce  instances  of 
determined  and  successful  resistance  offered  to  the  Crown. 
The  Tories  quoted,  from  ancient  writings,  expressions  almost  as 
servile  as  were  Iieard  from  the  pulpit  of  Mainwaring.  The 
Whigs  discovered  expressions  as  bold  and  severe  as  any  that 
resounded  from  the  judgment  seat  of  Bradshaw.  One  set 
of  writers  adduced  numerous  instances  in  which  Kings  had 
extorted  money  without  the  authority  of  Parliament.  Another 
set  cited  cases  in  which  the  Parliament  had  assumed  to  it- 
self the  pow«r  of  inflicting  punishment  on  Kings.  Those 
who  saw  only  one  half  of  the  evidence  would  have  concluded 
that  the  Plantajrenets  were  as  absolute  as  the  Sultans  of 
Turkey  :  those  who  saw  only  the  other  half  would  have  con- 
cluded that  the  Plantagenets  had  as  little  real  power  as 
the  DotJ-es  of  Venice. ;  and  both  conclusions  would  have  been 
equally  remote  from  the  truth. 

The  old  English  government  was  one  of  a  class  of  limited 
monarchies  which  sprang  up  in  Western  Europe  during  the 
middle  ages,  and  which,  notwithstanding  many  diversities,  bore 
to  one  another  a  strong  family  likeness.  That  there  should 
have  been  such  a  likeness  is  not  strange.     The  countries  Id 


BEFOUF,    THE    KESTORATION.  37 

which  those  monarchies  arose  had  been  provinces  of  the  same 
great  civilised  empire,  and  had  been  overrun  and  conquered, 
about  the  same  time,  by  tribes  of  the  same  rude  and  warlike 
nation.  They  were  members  of  the  same  great  coalition  against 
Islam.  They  were  in  communion  with  the  same  superb  and 
ambitious  Church.  Their  polity  naturally  took  the  same  form. 
They  had  institutions  derived  partly  from  imperial  Rome, 
partly  from  papal  Rome,  jDartly  from  the  old  Germany.  All 
had  Kings  ;  and  in  all  the  kingly  office  became  by  degrees 
strictly  hereditary.  All  had  nobles  bearing  titles  which  "had 
orginally  indicated  military  rank.  The  dignity  of  knighthood, 
the  rules  of  heraldry,  were  common  to  all.  All  had  richly 
endowed  ecclesiastical  establishments,  municipal  corporations 
enjoying  large  franchises,  and  senates  whose  consent  was  ne- 
cessary to  the  validity  of  some  public  acts. 

Of  these  kindred  constitutions  the  English  was,  from  an 
early  period,  justly  reputed  the  best.  The  prerogatives  of  the 
sovereign  were  undoubtedly  extensive.  The  spirit  of  religion 
and  the  spirit  of  chiyalry  concurred  to  exalt  his  dignity.  The 
sacred  oil  had  been  poured  ou  his  head.  It  was  no  disparage- 
ment to  the  bravest  and  noblest  knights  to  kneel  at  his  feet. 
His  person  was  inviolable.  He  alone  was  entitled  to  convoke 
the  Estates  of  the  realm :  he  could  at  his  pleasure  dismiss 
them ;  and  his  assent  was  necessary  to  all  their  legislative 
acts.  He  was  the  chief  of  the  executive  administration,  the 
sole  organ  of  communication  with  foreign  powers,  the  captain 
of  the  military  and  naval  forces  of  the  state,  the  fountain  of 
justice,  of  mercy,  and  of  honour.  He  had  large  powers  for  the 
regulation  of  trade.  It  was  by  him  that  money  was  coined, 
that  weights  and  measures  were  fixed,  that  marts  and  havens 
were  appointed.  His  ecclesiastical  patronage  was  immense. 
His  hereditary  revenues,  economically  administered,  sufficed  to 
meet  the  ordinary  charges  of  government.  His  own  domains 
were  of  vast  extent.  He  was  also  feudal  lord  paramount  of 
the  whole  soil  of  his  kingdom,  and,  in  that  capacity,  possessed 
many  lucrative  and  many  formidable  rights,  which  enabled  him 
to  annoy  and  depress  those  who  thwarted  him,  and  to  enrich 


38  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  — 

and  aggrandise,  without  any  cost  to  himself,  those  who  enjoyed 
his  favour. 

But  his  power,  though  ample,  was  limited  by  three  great 
constitutional  principles,  so  ancient  that  none  can  say  when 
they  began  to  exist,  so  potent  that  their  natural  development, 
continued  through  many  generations,  has  produced  the  order  of 
things  inider  which  we  now  live. 

First,  the  King  could  not  legislate  without  the  consent  of 
his  Parliament.  Secondly,  he  could  impose  no  tax  without  the 
consent  of  his  Parliament.  Thirdly,  he  was  bound  .to  conduct 
the  executive  administration  according  to  the  laws  of  the  land, 
and,  if  he  broke  those  laws,  his  advisers  and  his  agents  were 
responsible. 

No  candid  Tory  will  deny  that  these  principles  had,  five 
hundred  years  ago,  acquired  the  authority  of  fundamental  rules. 
On  the  other  hand,  no  candid  Whig  will  affirm  that  tliey  were, 
till  a  later  period,  cleared  from  all  ambiguity,  or  follo\\«ed  out 
to  all  their  consequences.  A  constitution  of  the  middle  ages 
was  not,  like  a  constitution  of  the  eighteenth  or  nineteenth 
century,  created  entire  by  a  single  act,  and  fully  set  forth  in  a 
single  document.  It  is  only  in  a  refined  and  speculative  age 
that  a  polity  is  constructed  on  system.  In  rude  societies  the 
progress  of  government  resembles  the  progress  of  language  and 
of  versification.  Rude  societies  have  language,  and  often  copious 
and  energetic  language :  but  they  have  no  scientific  grammar, 
no  definitions  of  nouns  and  verbs,  no  names  for  declensions, 
moods,  tenses,  and  voices.  Rude  societies  have  versification, 
and  often  versification  of  great  power  and  sweetness  :  but  they 
have  no  metrical  canons  ;  and  the  minstrel  whose  numbers, 
regulated  solely  by  his  ear,  are  the  delight  of  his  audience, 
would  himself  be  unable  to  say  of  how  many  dactyls  and  tro- 
chees each  of  his  lines  consists.  As  eloquence  exists  before 
syntax,  and  song  before  prosody,  so  government  may  exist  in  a 
hiffh  decree  of  excellence  long  before  the  limits  of  legislative, 
executive,  and  judicial  power  have  been  traced  with  precision. 

It  was  thus  in  our  country.  The  line  which  bounded  the 
royal  prerogative,  though  in  general  sufficiently  clear,  had  not 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  39 

everywhere  been  drawn  with  accuracy  and  distinctness.  There 
was,  therefore,  near  the  border^some  debatable  ground  on  which 
incursions  and  reprisals  continued  to  take  place,  till,  after  ages 
of  strife,  plain  and  durable  landmarks  were  at  length  set  up. 
It  may  be  instructive  to  note  in  what  way,  and  to  what  extent, 
our  ancient  sovereijjns  were  in  the  habit  of  violatinof  the  three 
great  principles  by  which  the  liberties  of  the  nation  were  pro- 
tected. 

No  English  King  has  ever  laid  claim  to  the  general  legisla- 
tive power.  The  most  violent  and  imperious  Plautagenet  never 
fancied  himself  competent  to  enact,  without  the  consent  of  his 
great  council,  that  a  jury  should  consist  of  ten  persons  instead 
of  twelve,  that  a  widow's  dower  should  be  a  fourth  part  instead 
of  a  third,  that  perjury  should  be  a  felony,  or  that  the  custom 
of  gavelkind  should  be  introduced  into  Yorkshire.*  But  the 
King  had  the  power  of  pardoning  offenders  ;  and  there  is  one 
point  at  which  the  power  of  pardoning  and  the  power  of  legis- 
lating seem  to  fade  into  each  other,  and  may  easily,  at  least  in 
a  simple  age,  be  confounded.  A  penal  statute  is  virtually  an- 
nulled if  the  penalties  which  it  imposes  are  regularly  remitted 
as  often  as  they  are  incurred.  The  sovereign  was  undoubtedly 
competent  to  remit  penalties  without  limit.  He  was  therefore 
competent  to  annul  virtually  a  penal  statute.  It  might  seem 
that  there  could  be  no  serious  objection  to  his  doing  foi-mally 
what  he  might  do  virtually.  Thus,  with  the  help  of  subtle  and 
courtly  lawyers,  grew  up,  on  the  doubtful  frontier  which  sepa- 
rates executive  from  legislative  functions,  that  great  anomaly 
known  as  the  dispensing  power. 

That  the  King  could  not  impose  taxes  without  the  consent 
of  Parliament  is  admitted  to  have  been,  from  time  immemorial, 
a  fundamental  law  of  England.  It  was  among  the  articles 
which  John  was  com}>elled  by  the  Barons  to  sign.  Edward  the 
First  ventured  to  break  through  the  rule  :  but,  able,  powerful, 
and  popular  as  he  was,  he  encountered  an  opposition  to  which 
he  found  it  expedient  to  yield.      He  covenanted  accordingly  in 

•  This  is  excellently  put  iy  Mr,  HaUani  in  the  first  chapter  of  his  Constitu- 
tional History. 


40  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

express  terms,  for  himself  and  his  heirs,  that  they  would  never 
again  levy  any  aid  without  the  assent  and  goodwill  of  the 
Estates  of  the  realm.  His  powerful  and  victorious  grandson 
attempted  to  violate  this  solemn  compact :  but  the  attempt  was 
strenuously  withstood.  At  length  the  Plantagenets  gave  up 
the  point  in  despair :  but,  though  they  ceased  to  infringe  the 
law  openly,  they  occasionally  contrived,  by  evading  it,  to  pro- 
cure an  extraordinary  supply  for  a  temporary  purpose.  They 
were  interdicted  from  taxing ;  but  they  claimed  the  right  of 
begging  and  borrowing.  They  therefore  sometimes  begged  in 
a  tone  not  easily  to  be  distinguished  from  that  of  command,  and 
sometimes  borrowed  with  small  thought  of  repaying.  But  the 
fact  that  they  thought  it  necessary  to  disguise  their  exactions 
under  the  names  of  benevolences  and  loans  sufficiently  proves 
that  the  authority  of  the  great  constitutional  rule  was  univer- 
sally recognised. 

The  principle  that  the  King  of  England  was  bound  to  con- 
duct the  administration  according  to  law,  and  that,  if  he  did 
anything  against  law,  his  advisers  and  agents  were  answerable, 
was  established  at  a  very  early  period,  as  the  severe  judgments 
pronounced  and  executed  on  many  royal  favourites  sufficiently 
prove.  It  is,  however,  certain  that  the  rights  of  individuals 
were  often  violated  by  the  Plantagenets,  and  that  the  injured 
parties  were  often  unable  to  obtain  redress. .  According  to  law 
no  Englishman  could  be  arrested  or  detained  in  confinement 
merely  by  the  mandate  of  the  sovereign.  In  fact,  persons 
obnoxious  to  the  government  were  frequently  imprisoned  with- 
out any  other  authority  than  a  royal  order.  According  to  law, 
torture,  the  disgrace  of  the  Roman  jurisprudence,  could  not,  in 
any  circumstances,  be  inflicted  on  an  English  subject.  Never- 
theless, during  the  troubles  of  the  fifteenth  century,  a  rack  was 
introduced  into  the  Tower,  and  was  occasionally  used  under  the 
plea  of  political  necessity.  But  it  would  be  a  great  error  to 
infer  from  such  irregularities  that  the  English  monarchs  were, 
either  in  theory  or  in  practice,  absolute.  "We  live  in  a  highly 
civilised  society,  through  which  intelligence  is  so  rapidly  dif- 
fused by  means  of  the  press  and  of  the  post  office  that  any 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  41 

gross  act  of  oppression  committed  in  any  part  of  our  island  is, 
in  a  few  hours,  discussed  by  millions.  If  the  sovereign  were 
now  to  immure  a  subject  in  defiance  of  the  writ  of  Habeas 
Corpus,  or  to  put  a  conspirator  to  the  torture,  the  whole  nation 
would  be  instantly  electrified  by  the  news.  In  the  middle  ages 
the  state  of  society  was  widely  different.  Rarely  and  witli 
great  difficulty  did  the  wrongs  of  individuals  come  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  public.  A  man  might  be  illegally  confined  during 
many  months  in  the  castle  of  Carlisle  or  Norwich  ;  and  no 
whisper  of  the  transaction  might  reach  London.  It  is  highly 
probable  that  the  rack  had  been  many  years  in  use  before  the 
great  majority  of  the  nation  had  the  least  suspicion  that  it  was 
ever  employed.  Nor  were  our  ancestors  by  any  means  so  much 
alive  as  we  are  to  the  importance  of  maintaining  great  general 
rules.  We  have  been  taught  by  long  experience  that  we  can- 
not without  danger  suffer  any  breach  of  the  constitution  to  pass 
unnoticed.  It  is  therefore  now  universall}'  held  that  a  govern- 
ment which  unnecessarily  exceeds  its  powers  ought  to  be  visited 
with  severe  parliamentary  censure,  and  that  a  government  which, 
under  the  pressure  of  a  great  exigency,  and  withpui'e  intentions, 
has  exceeded  its  powers,  ought  without  delay  to  apply  to  Par- 
liament for  an  apt  of  indemnity.  But  such  were  not  the  feelings 
of  the  Eiifrlishmen  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries. 
They  were  little  disposed  to  contend  for  a  principle  merely  as  a 
principle,  or  to  cry  out  against  an  irregularity  which  was  not 
also  felt  to  be  a  grievance.  As  long  as  the  general  spirit  of  the 
administration  was  mild  and  popular,  they  were  willing  to  allow 
some  latitude  to  their  sovereign.  If,  for  ends  generally  ac' 
knowledged  to  be  good,  lie  exerted  a  vigour  beyond  the  law, 
they  not  only  forgave,  but  applauded  him,  and  while  they  en- 
joyed security  and  prosperity  under  his  rule,  were  but  too  ready 
to  believe  that  whoever  had  incurred  his  displeasure  had  de- 
served it.  But  to  this  indulgence  there  was  a  limit ;  nor  was 
that  King  wise  who  presumed  far  on  the  forbearance  of  the 
English  people.  They  might  sometimes  allow  him  to  overstep 
the  constitutional  line :  but  they  also  claimed  the  privilege  of 
overstepping  that  line  themselves,  whenever  his  encroachments 


42  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

were  so  serious  as  to  excite  alarm.  If,  not  content  with  occa- 
sionally oppressing  individuals,  he  darpd  to  oppress  great  masses, 
his  subjects  promptly  appealed  to  the  laws,  and,  that  appeal 
failing,  appealed  as  promptly  to  the  God  of  battles. 

Our  forefathers  might  indeed  safely  tolerate  a  king  in  a  few 
excesses  ;  for  they  had  in  reserve  a  check  which  soon  brought 
the  fiercest  and  proudest  king  to  reason,  the  check  of  physical 
force.  It  is  difficult  for  an  Englishman  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury to  imagine  to  himself  the  facility  and  rapidity  with  which, 
four  hundred  years  ago,  this  check  was  applied.  The  people 
have  long  unlearned  the  use  of  arms.  The  art  of  war  has  been 
carried  to  a  perfection  unknown  to  former  ages  ;  and  the  knowl- 
edge of  that  art  is  confined  to  a  particular  class.  A  hundred 
thousand  soldiers,  v/ell  disciplined  and  commanded,  will  keep 
down  ten  millions  of  ploughmen  and  artisans.  A  few  regiments 
of  household  troops  are  sufficient  to  overawe  all  the  discontented 
spirits  of  a  large  capital.  In  the  meantime  the  effect  of  the 
constant  progress  of  wealth  has  been  to  make  insurrection  far 
more  terrible  to  thinking  men  than  maladministration.  Immense 
sums  have  been  expended  on  works  which,  if  a  rebellion  broke 
out,  might  perish  in  a  few  hours.  The  mass  of  movable  wealth 
collected  in  the  shops  and  warehouses  of  London  alone  exceeds 
five  hundredfold  that  which  the  whole  island  contained  in  the 
days  of  the  Plantagenets ;  and,  if  the  government  were  subvert- 
ed by  physical  force,  all  this  movable  wealth  would  be  exposed 
to  imminent  risk  of  spoliation  and  destruction.  Still  greater 
would  be  the  risk  to  public  credit,  on  which  thousands  of  families 
directly  depend  for  subsistence,  and  with  which  the  credit  of  the 
whole  commercial  world  is  inseparably  connected.  It  is  no  ex- 
aggeration to  say  that  a  civil  war  of  a  week  on  English  ground 
would  now  produce  disasters  which  would  be  felt  from  the  Hoang- 
ho  to  the  Missouri,  and  of  which  the  traces  would  be  discernible 
at  the  distance  of  a  century.  In  such  a  state  of  society  resist- 
ance must  be  regarded  as  a  cure  more  desperate  than  almost 
any  malady  which  can  afflict  the  state.  In  the  middle  ages,  on 
the  contrary,  resistance  was  an  ordinary  remedy  for  political 
distempers,  a  remedy  which  was  always   at  hand,  and  which, 


BEFORE    THE   RESTORATION.  43 

though  doubtless  sharp  at  the  moment,  produced*  no  deep  or 
lasting  ill  effects.  H  a  popular  chief  raised  his  standard  in  a 
popular  cause,  an  irregular  army  could  be  assembled  in  a  day- 
Regular  army  there  was  none.  Every  man  had  a  slight  tincture^ 
of  soldiership,  and  scarcely  any  man  more  than  a  slight  tincture. 
The  national  wealth  consisted  chiefly  in  flocks  and  herds,  in  the 
harvest  of  the  j^ear,  and  in  the  simple  buildings  inhabited  by 
the  people.  All  the  furniture,  the  stock  of  shops,  the  machin- 
ery which  could  be  found  in  the  realm  was  of  less  value  than 
the  property  which  some  single  parishes  now  contain.  Man- 
iifactures  were  rude ;  credit  was  almost  unknown.  Society, 
therefore,  recovered  from  the  shock  as  soon  as  the  actual  conflict 
was  over.  The  calamities  of  civil  war  were  confined  to  the 
slaughter  on  the  field  of  battle,  and  to  a  few  subsequent  execu- 
tions and  confiscations.  In  a  week  the  peasant  was  driving  his 
team  and  the  esquire  flying  his  hawks  over  the  field  of  Towton 
or  of  Bosworth,  as  if  no  extraordinary  event  had  interrupted 
the  regular  course  of  human  life. 

More  than  a  hundred  and  sixty  years  have  now  elapsed  since 
the  English  people  have  by  force  subverted  a  government. 
During  the  hundred  and  sixty  years  which  preceded  the  union 
sf  the  Roses,  nine  Kings  reigned  in  England.  Six  of  these 
nine  Kings  were  deposed.  Five  lost  their  lives  as  well  as  their 
irowns.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  any  comparison  between 
sur  ancient  and  our  modern  polity  must  lead  to  most  erroneous 
conclusions,  unless  large  allowance  be  made  for  the  effect  of 
that  restraint  which  resistance  and  the  fear  of  resistance  con- 
stantly imposed  on  the  Plantagenets.  As  our  ancestors  had 
against  tyranny  a  most  important  security  which  we  want,  they 
misht  safely  dispense  with  some  securities  to  which  we  justly 
attach  the  highest  importance.  As  we  cannot,  without  the  risk 
of  evils  from  which  the  imagination  recoils,  employ  physical 
force  as  a  check  on  misgovernment,  it  is  evidently  our  wisdom 
to  keep  all  the  constitutional  checks  on  misgovernment  in  the 
highest  state  of  efficiency,  to  watch  with  jealousy  the  first  be- 
ginnings of  encroachment,  and  never  to  suffer  irregularities, 
even  when  harmless  in  themselves,  to  pass  unchallengfed,  lest 


44  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

they  acquire  the  force  of  precedents.  Four  hundred  years  ago 
such  minute  vigilance  might  well  seem  unnecessary.  A  nation 
of  hardy  archers  and  spearmen  might,  with  small  risk  to  its  lib- 
erties, connive  at  sonie  illegal  acts  on  the  part  of  a  prince  whose 
general  administration  was  good,  and  whose  throne  was  not  de- 
fended by  a  single  company  of  regular  soldiers. 

Under  this  system,  rude  as  it  may  appear  when  compared 
with  those  elaborate  constitutions  of  which  the  last  seventy 
years  have  been  fruitful,  the  English  long  enjoyed  a  large 
measure  of  freedom  and  happiness.  Though,  during  the  feeble 
reign  of  Henry  the  Sixth,  the  state  was  torn,  first  by  factions, 
and  at  length  by  civil  war ;  though  Edward  the  Fourth  was  a 
prince  of  dissolute  and  imperious  character ;  though  Richard 
the  Third  has  generally  been  represented  as  a  monster  of  de- 
pravity ;  though  the  exactions  of  Henry  the  Seventh  caused 
great  repining;  it  is  certain  that  our  ancestors,  wider  those 
Kings,  were  far  better  governed  than  the  Belgians  under 
Philip,  surnamed  the  Good,  or  the  French  under  that  Lewis 
who  was  styled  the  Father  of  his  people.  Even  while  the 
wars  of  the  Roses  were  actually  raging,  our  country  appears  to 
have  been  in  a  happier  condition  than  the  neighbouring  realms 
during  years  of  profound  peace.  Comines  was  one  of  the  most 
enlightened  statesmen  of  his  time.  He  had  seen  all  the  richest 
and  most  highly  civilised  parts  of  the  Continent.  He  had  lived 
in  the  opulent  towns  of  Flanders,  the  Manchesters  and  Liver- 
pools  of  the  fifteenth  century.  He  had  visited  Florence,  recently 
adorned  by  the  magnificence  of  Lorenzo,  and  Venice,  not  yet 
humbled  by  the  Confederates  of  Cambray.  This  eminent  mau 
deliberately  pronounced  England  to  be  the  best  governed  country 
of  which  he  had  any  knowledge.  Her  constitution  he  emphat= 
ically  designated  as  a  just  and  holy  thing,  which,  while  it  pro- 
tected the  people,  really  strengthened  the  hands  of  a  prince  who 
respected  it.  In  no  other  country  were  men  so  effectually 
secured  from  wrong.  The  calamities  produced  by  our  intestine 
wars  seemed  to  him  to  be  confined  to  the  nobles  and  the  fighting 
men,  and  to  leave  no  traces  such  as  he  had  been  accustomed 
to  see  elsewhere,  no  ruined  dwellings,  no  depopulated  citiest 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  45 

It  was  not  ouly  by  the  eliicieucy  of  the  restraints  imposed  oa 
the  royal  prerogative  that  England  was  advantageously  distin- 
guished from  most  of  the  neighbouring  countries.  A  peculiarity 
equally  important,  though  less  noticed,  was  the  relation  in 
which  the  nobility  stood  here  to  the  commonalty.  There  was  a 
strong  hereditary  aristocracy :  but  it  was  of  all  Itereditary  aris- 
tocracies the  least  insolent  and  exclusive.  It  had  none  of  the 
invidious  character  of  a  caste.  It  was  constantly  receiving 
members  from  the  people,  and  constantly  sending  down  mem- 
bers to  mingle  with  the  people.  Any  gentleman  might  become 
a  peer.  The  younger  son  of  a  peer  was  but  a  gentleman. 
Grandsons  of  peers  yielded  precedence  to  newly  made  knights. 
The  dignity  of  knighthood  was  not  beyond  the  reach  of  any  man 
who  could  by  diligence  and  thrift  realise  a  good  estate,  or  who 
could  attract  notice  by  his  valour  in  a  battle  or  a  siege.  It  was 
regarded  as  no  disparagement  for  the  daughter  of  a  Duke,  nay 
of  a  royal  Duke,  to  espouse  a  distinguished  commoner.  Thus, 
Sir  John  Howard  married  the  daughter  of  Thomas  Mowbi'ay 
Duke  of  Norfolk.  Sir  Richard  Pole  married  the  Countess  of 
Salisbury,  daughter  of  Ceorge  Duke  of  Clarence.  Good  blood 
was  indeed  held  in  high  respect :  but  between  good  blood  and 
::he  privileges  of  peerage  there  was,  most  fortunately  for  our 
country,  no  necessary  connection.  Pedigrees  as  long,  and 
scutcheons  as  old,  were  to  be  found  out  of  the  House  of  Lords 
as  in  it.  There  were  new  men  who  bore  the  highest  titles. 
There  were  untitled  men  well  known  to  be  descended  from  knights 
who  had  broken  the  Saxon  ranks  at  Hastings,  and  scaled  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem.  There  w6re  Bohuns,  Mowbrays,  De  Veres, 
nay,  kinsmen  of  the  House  of  Plantagenet,  with  no  higher  ad- 
dition than  that  of  Esquire,  aftd  with  no  civil  privileges  beyond 
those  enjoyed  by  every  farmer  and  shopkeeper.  There  was 
therefore  here  no  line  like  that  which  in  ;ome  other  countries 
divided  the  patrician  from  the  plebeiauo  The  yeoman  was  not 
inclined  to  murmur  at  dignities  to  which  his  own  children  might 
rise.  The  grandee  was  not  inclined  to  insult  a  class  into  which 
his  own  children  must  descend. 

After  the  wars  of  York  and  Lancaster,  the  links  which  con- 


46  HISTORY    OP   ENGLAND. 

nected  the  nobility  and  commonalty  became  closer  and  more 
numerous  than  ever.  The  extent  of  destruction  which  had  fallen 
on  the  old  aristocracy  may  be  inferred  from  a  single  circum- 
stance. In  the  year  1454  Henry  the  Sixth  summoned  fifty -three 
temporal  Lords  to  parliament.  The  temporal  Lords  summoned 
by  Henry  the  Seven tli  to  the  parliament  of  1485  vi^ere  only 
twenty-nine,  and  of  these  several  had  recently  been  elevated  to 
the  peerage.  During  the  following  century  the  ranks  of  the  no- 
bility were  largely  recruited  from  among  the  gentry.  The  con- 
stitution of  the  House  of  Commons  tended  greatly  to  promote 
the  salutary  intermixture  of  classes.  The  knight  of  the  shire 
was  the  connecting  link  between  the  baron  and  the  shopkeeper. 
On  the  same  benches  on  which  sate  the  goldsmiths,  draj^ers,  and 
grocers,  who  had  been  returned  to  parliament  by  the  commercial 
towns,  sate  also  members  who,  in  any  other  country,  would  have 
been  called  noblemen,  hereditary  lords  of  manors,  entitled  to 
hold  courts  and  to  bear  coat  armour,  and  able  to  trace  back  an 
honourable  descent  through  many  generations.  Some  of  them 
were  younger  sons  and  brothers  of  lords.  Others  could  boast 
of  even  royal  blood.  At  length  the  eldest  son  of  an  Earl  of 
Bedford,  called  in  courtesy  by  the  second  title  of  his  father, 
offercfl  himself  as  candidate  for  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, and  his  example  was  followed  by  others.  Seated  in  that 
house,  the  heirs  of  the  .great  peers  naturally  became  as  zealous 
for  its  privileges  as  any  of  the  humble  burgesses  with  whom 
they  were  mingled.  Thus  our  democracy  was,  from  an  early 
period,  the  most  aristocratic,  and  our  aristocracy  the  most  dem- 
ocratic in  the  world  ;  a  peculiarity  which  has  lasted  down  to  the 
present  day,  and  which  has  produced  many  important  moral  and 
political  effects. 

The  government  of  Henry  the  Seventh,  of  his  son,  and  of 
his  grandchildren  was,  on  the  whole,  more  arbitrary  than  that 
of  the  Plantagenets.  Personal  character  may  in  some  degi-ee 
explain  the  di-fference ;  for  courage  and  force  of  will  were  com- 
mon to  all  the  men  and  women  of  the  House  of  Tudor.  They 
exercised  their  power  during  a  period  of  a  hundred  and  twenty 
years,  always  with  vigour,  often  with  violence,  sometimes  with 


BEFORE    THE   RESTORATION.  47 

cruelty.  They,  in  imitation  of  the  dynasty  which  had  preceded 
them,  occasionally  invaded  the  rights  of  the  subject,  occasionally 
exacted  taxes  under  the  name  of  loans  and  gifts,  and  occasionally 
dispensed  with  penal  statutes  :  nay,  though  they  never  presumed 
to  enact  any  permanent  law  by  their  own  authority,  they  occa- 
sionally took  upon  themselves,  when  Parliament  was  not  sitting, 
to  meet  temporary  exigencies  by  temporary  edicts.  It  was, 
however,  impossible  for  the  Tudors  to  carry  oppression  beyond 
jt,  certain  point :  for  they  had  no  armed  force,  and  they  were 
surrounded  by  an  armed  peopl-e.  Their  palace  was  guarded  by 
a  few  domestics,  whom  the  array  of  a  single  shire,  or  of  a  single 
ward  of  London,  could  with  ease  have  overpowered.  These 
haughty  princes  were  therefore  under  a  restraint  stronger 
than  any  that  mere  law  can  impose,  under  a  restraint 
which  did  not,  indeed,  prevent  them  from  sometimes  treat- 
ing an  individual  in  an  arbitrary  and  even  in  a  barbarous 
manner,  but  which  effectually  secured  the  nation  against  general 
and  long  confinued  oppression.  They  might  safely  be  tyrants, 
within  the  precinct  of  the  court :  but  it  was  necessary  for  them 
to  watch  with  constant  anxiety  the  temper  of  the  country, 
Henry  the  Eighth,  for  example,  encountered  no  opposition  when 
he  wished  to  send  Buckingham  and  Surrey,  Anne  Boleyn  and 
Lady  Salisbury,  to  the  scaffold.  But  wheu,  without  the  consent 
of  Parliament,  he  demanded  of  his  subjects  a  contribution  amount- 
ing to  one  sixth  of  their  goods,  he  soon  found  it  necessary  to 
retract.  The  cry  of  hundreds  of  thousands  was  that  they  were 
English  and  not  French,  freemen  and  not  slaves.  In  Kent  the 
royal  commissioners  fled  for  their  lives.  In  Suffolk  four  thou- 
sand men  appeared  in  arms.  The  King's  lieutenants  in  that 
county  vainly  exerted  themselves  to  raise  an  army.  Those 
who  did  not  join  in  the  insurrection  declared  that  they  would 
not  fight  against  their  brethren  in  such  a  quarrel.  Henry,  proud 
and  selfwilled  as  he  was,  shrank,  not  without  reason,  from  a 
conflict  with  the  roused  spirit  of  the  nation.  He  had  before  his 
eyes  the  fate  of  his  predecessors  who  had  perished  at  Berkeley 
and  Pomfret.  lie  not  only  cancelled  his  illegal  commissions  ; 
he  not  only  granted  a  general  pardon  to  all  the  malecontents; 


48  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

but  he  publicly  and  solemnly  auologised  for  his  infraction  of  thfe 
laws. 

His  conduct,  on  this  occasion,  well  illustrates  the  whole  policy 
of  his  house.  The  temper  of  the  princes  of  that  line  'Hjas  hot, 
ajid  their  spirits  high,  but  they  understood  the  character  of  the 
nation  that  they  governed,  and  never  once,  like  some  of  their 
predecessors,  and  some  of  their  successors,  carried  obstinacy  to 
a  fatal  point.  The  discretion  of  the  Tudors  was  such,  that  their 
power,  though  it  was  often  resisted,  was  never  subverted.  The 
reign  of  every  one  of  them  was  disturbed  by  formidable  discon- 
tents:  but  the  govern-ment  was  always  able  either  to  soothe  the 
mutineers  or  to  conquer  and  punish  them.  Sometimes,  by  timely 
concessions,  it  succeeded  in  averting  civil  hostilities  ;  but  in  gene- 
ral it  stood  firm,  and  called  for  help  on  the  nation.  The  nation 
obeyed  the  call,  rallied  round  the  sovereign,  and  enabled  him  to 
quell  the  disaffected  minority. 

Thus,  from  the  age  of  Henry  the  Third  to  the  age  of  Eliza- 
■beth,  England  grew  and  flourished  under  a  polity  which  con- 
tained the  germ  of  our  present  institutions,  and  which,  though  not 
very  exactly  defined,  or  very  exactly  observed,  was  yet  effec- 
tually prevented  from  degenerating  into  despotism,  by  the  awe  in 
which  the  governors  stood  of  the  spirit  and  strength  of  the 
governed. 

But  such  a  polity  is  suited  only  to  a  particular  stage  in  the 
progress  of  society.  The  same  causes  which  produce  a  division 
of  labour  in  the  peaceful  arts  must  at  length  make  war  a  dis- 
tinct science  and  a  distinct  trade.  A  time  arrives  when  the  use 
of  arms  begins  to  occupy  the  entire  attention  of  a  separate  class. 
It  soon  appears  that  peasants  and  burghers,  however  brave,  are 
unable  to  stand  their  ground  against  veteran  soldiers,  whose 
whole  life  is  a  preparation  for  the  day  of  battle,  whose  nerves 
have  been  braced  by  long  familiarity  with  danger,  and  whose 
movements  have  all  the  precision  of  clockwork.  It  is  found 
that  the  defence  of  nations  can  no  longer  be  safely  entrusted  to 
warriors  taken  from  the  plough  or  the  loom  for  a  campaign  of 
forty  days.  If  any  state  forms  a  great  regular  array,  the  bor- 
dering states  must  imitate  the  example,  or  must  submit  to  a  for- 


BKFORK    THE    RESTORATION.  49 

eign  yoke.  But,  where  a  great  regular  army  exists,  limited 
monarchy,  such  as  it  was  in  the  middle  ages,  cau  exist  no  longer. 
The  sovereign  is  at  once  emancipated  from  what  had  been  the 
chief  restraint  on  his  power  ;  and  he  inevitably  becomes  abso- 
lute, unless  he  is  subjected  to  checks  such  as  would  be  super- 
fluous in  a  society  where  all  are  soldiers  occasionally,  and  none 
permanently. 

With  the  danger  came  also  the  means  of  escape.  In  the 
monarchies  of  the  middle  ages  the  power  of  the  sword  belonged 
to  the  prince ;  but  the  power  of  the  purse  belonged  to  the 
nation  ;  and  the  progress  of  civilisation,  as  it  made  the  sword 
of  the  prince  more  and  more  formidable  to  the  nation,  made  the 
purse  of  the  nation  more  and  more  necessary  to  the  prince.  His 
hereditary  revenues  would  no  longer  suffice,  even  for  the  ex- 
penses of  civil  government.  It  was  utterly  impossible  that, 
without  a  regular  and  extensive  system  of  taxation,  he  could 
keep  in  constant  efficiency  a  great  body  of  disciplined  troops. 
The  policy  which  the  parliamentary  assemblies  of  Europe  ought 
to  have  adopted  was  to  take  their  stand  firmly  on  their  consti- 
tutional right  to  give  or  withhold  money,  and  resolutely  to 
refuse  funds  for  the  support  of  armies,  till  ample  securities  had 
been  provided  against  despotism. 

This  wise  policy  was  followed  in  our  country  alone.  In 
the  neighbouring  kingdoms  great  military  establishments  were 
formed  ;  no  new  safeguards  for  public  liberty  were  devised  ; 
and  the  consequence  was,  that  the  old  parliamentary  institutions 
everywhere  ceased  to  exist.  In  France,  where  they  had  always 
been  feeble,  they  languished,  and  at  length  died  of  mere  weak- 
ness. In  Spain,  where  they  had  been  as  strong  as  in  any  part 
of  Europe,  they  struggled  fiercely  for  life,  but  struggled  too 
late.  The  mechanics  of  Toledo  and  Valladolid  vainly  defended 
the  privileges  of  the  Castilian  Cortes  against  the  veteran  bat- 
talions of  Charles  the  Fifth.  As  vainly,  in  the  next  genera- 
tion, did  the  citizens  of  Saragossa  stand  up  against  Philip  the 
Second,  for  the  old  constitution  of  Aragon.  One  after  another, 
the  great  national  councils  of  the  continental  monarchies, 
councils  once  scarcely  less  proud  and  powerful  tlian  those  which 

4 


50  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

sate  at  Westminster,  sank  into  utter  insignificance.  If  they 
met,  they  met  merely  as  our  Convocation  now  meets,  to  go 
through  some  venerable  forms. 

In  England  events  took  a  different  course.  This  singular 
felicity  she  owed  chiefly  to  her  insular  situation.  Before  the 
end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  great  military  establishments  were 
indispensable  to  the  dignity,  and  even  to  the  safety,  of  the 
French  and  Castilian  monarchies.  If  either  of  those  two  powers 
had  disarmed,  it  would  soon  have  been  compelled  to  submit  to 
the  dictation  of  the  other.  But  England,  protected  by  the  sea 
against  invasion,  and  rarely  engaged  in  warlike  operations  on 
the  Continent,  was  not,  as  yet,  under  the  necessity  of  employing 
regular  troops.  The  sixteenth  century,  the  seventeenth  century, 
found  her  stiU  without  a  standing  army.  At  the  commence- 
ment of  the  seventeenth  century  political  science  had  made  con- 
siderable progress.  The  fate  of  the  Spanish  Cortes  and  of  the 
French  States  General  had  given  solemn  warning  to  our  Par- 
liaments ;  and  our  Parliaments,  fully  aware  of  the  nature  and 
magnitude  of  the  danger,  adopted,  in  good  time,  a  system  of  tac- 
tics which,  after  a  contest  protracted  through  three  generations, 
was  at  length  successful. 

Almost  every  writer  who  has  treated  of  that  contest  has 
been  desirous  to  show  that  his  own  party  was  the  party  which 
was  struggling  to  preserve  the  old  constitution  unaltered.  The 
truth  however  is  that  the  old  constitution  could  not  be  preserved 
unaltered.  A  law,  beyond  the  control  of  human  wisdom,  had 
decreed  that  there  should  no  loncjer  be  governments  of  that 
peculiar  class  which,  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries, 
had  been  common  throughout  Europe.  The  question,  therefore, 
was  not  whether  our  polity  should  undergo  a  change,  but  what 
the  nature  of  the  change  should  be.  The  introduction  of  a  new 
and  mighty  force  had  disturbed  the  old  equilibrium,  and  had 
turned  one  limited  monarchy  after  another  into  an  absolute 
monarchy.  AVhat  had  happened  elsewhere  would  assuredly 
have  happened  here,  unless  the  balance  had  been  redressed  by 
a  great  transfer  of  power  from  the  crown  to  the  parliament. 
Our  princes  were  about  to  have  at  their  command  means  of 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  51 

«oti£ioa  such  as  no  Plantagenet  or  Tudor  had  ever  possessed. 
They  must  inevitably  have  become  despots,  unless  they  had 
been,  at  the  same  time,  placed  under  restraints  to  which  no 
Plantagenet  or  Tudor  had  ever  been  subject. 

It  seems  certain,  therefore,  that,  had  none  but  political 
causes  been  at  work,  the  seventeenth  century  would  not  have 
passed  away  without  a  fierce  conflict  between  our  Kings  and 
their  Parliaments.  But  other  causes  of  perhaps  greater  potency 
contributed  to  jiroduce  the  same  effect.  While  the  government 
of  the  Tudors  was  in  its  highest  vigour  an  event  took  place 
which  has  coloured  the  destinies  of  all  Christian  nations,  and  in 
an  especial  manner  the  destinies  of  England.  Twice  during 
the  middle  ages  the  mind  of  Europe  had  risen  up  against  the 
domination  of  Rome.  The  first  insurrection  broke  out  in  the 
south  of  France,  The  energy  of  Innocent  the  Third,  the  zeal 
of  the  young  orders  of  Francis  and  Dominic,  and  the  ferocity 
of  the  Crusaders  whom  the  priesthood  let  loose  on  an  unwarlike 
population,  crushed  "the  Albigensian  churches.  The  second 
reformation  had  its  origin  in  England,  and  spread  to  Bohemia. 
The  Council  of  Constance,  by  removing  some  ecclesiastical  dis- 
orders which  had  given  scandal  to  Christendom,  and  the  jmnces 
of  Europe,  by  unsparingly  using  fire  and  sword  against  the 
heretics,  succeeded  in  arresting  and  turning  back  the  movement. 
Nor  is  this  much  to  be  lamented.  The  sympathies  of  a  Protes- 
tant, it  is  true,  will  naturally  be  on  the  side  of  the  Albigensian^ 
and  of  the  Lollards.  Yet  an  enlightened  and.temperate  Protes' 
taut  will  perhaps  be  disposed  to  doubt  whether  the  success^ 
either  of  the  Albigensians  or  of  the  Lollards,  would,  on  the 
whole,  have  promoted  the  happiness  and  virtue  of  mankind. 
Corrupt  as  the  Church  of  Rome  was,  there  is  reason  to  believe 
that,  if  that  Church  had  been  overthrown  in  the  twelfth  or  even 
in  the  fourteenth  century,  the  vacant  space  would  have  been 
occupied  by  some  system  more  corrupt  still.  There  was  then, 
through  the  greater  part  oi  Europe,  very  little  knowledge ;  and 
that  little  was  confined  to  the  clergy.  Not  one  man  in  five 
hundred  could  have  spelled  his  way  through  a  psalm.  Book* 
were   few   and   costly.     The    art   of  printing   was   unknown. 


52  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

Copies  of  the  Bible,  iuferior  in  beauty  and  clearness  to  those 
which  every  cottager  may  now  command,  sold  for  prices  which 
many  priests  could  not  aiford  to  give.  It  was  obviously  impos- 
sible that  the  laity  should  search  the  Scriptures  for  themselves. 
It  is  probable  therefore,  that,  as  soon  as  they  had  put  off  one 
spiritual  yoke,  they  would  have  put  on  another,  and  that  the 
power  lately  exercised  by  the  clergy  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
would  have  passed  to  a  far  worse  class  of  teachers.  The  six- 
teenth century  was  comparatively  a  time  of  light.  Yet  even  in 
ihe  sixteenth  century  a  considerable  number  of  those  who 
quitted  the  old  religion  followed  the  first  confident  and  i:)lausible 
guide  who  offered  himself,  and  were  soon  led  into  errors  far 
more  serious  than  those  which  they  had  renounced.  Thus  Mat- 
thias and  Kniperdoling,  apostles  of  lust,  robbery,  and  murder, 
were  able  for  a  time  to  rule  great  cities.  In  a  darker  age  such 
false  prophets  might  have  founded  empires  ;  and  Christianity 
might  have  been  distorted  into  a  cruel  and  licentious  supersti- 
tion, more  noxious,  not  only  than  Popery,  but  even  than  Islamism. 

About  a  hundred  years  after  the  rising  of  the  Council  of 
Constance,  that  great  change  emphatically  called  the  Reforma- 
tion began.  The  fulness  of  time  was  now  come.  The  clergy 
were  no  longer  the  sole  or  the  chief  depositories  of  knowledge. 
The  invention  of  printing  had  furnished  the  assailants  of  the 
Church  with  a  mighty  weapon  which  had  been  wanting  to  their 
predecessors.  The  study  of  the  ancient  writers,  the  rapid  de- 
velopment of  the  powers  of  the  modern  languages,  the  unprece- 
dented activity  which  was  displayed  in  every  department  of 
literature,  the  political  state  of  Europe,  the  vices  of  the  Roman 
court,  the  exactions  of  the  Roman  chancery,  the  jealousy  with 
which  the  wealth  and  privileges  of  the  clergy  were  naturally 
regarded  by  laymen,  the  jealousy  with  which  the  Italian  ascend- 
ency was  naturally  regarded  by  men  born  on  our  side  of  thfe, 
Alps,  all  these  things  gave  to  the  teachers  of  the  new  theology 
an  advantage  which  they  perfectly  understood  how  to  use. 

Those  who  hold  that  the  influence  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
in  the  dark  ages  was,  on  the  whole,  beneficial  to  mankind,  may 
yet  with  perfect   consistency   regard   the    Reformation   as  an 


BEFORE    THE   RESTORATION.  53 

inestimable  blessing.  The  leading  strings,  which  preserve  and 
uphold  the  infant,  would  impede  the  fullgrown  man.  And  so 
the  very  means  by  which  the  human  mind  is,  in  one  stage  of 
its  progress,  supported  and  propelled,  may,  in  another  stage,  be 
mere  hindrances.  There  is  a  season  in  the  life  both  of  an 
individual  and  of  a  society,  at  which  subnaission  and  faith,  such 
as  at  a  later  j^eriod  would  be  justly  called  servility  and  credulity, 
are  useful  qualities.  The  child  who  teachably  and  undoubtingly 
listens  to  the  instructions  of  his  elders  is  likely  to  improve 
rapidly.  But  the  man  who  should  receive  with  childlike  docility 
every  assertion  and  dogma  uttered  by  another  man  no  wiser 
than  himself  would  become  contemptible.  It  is  the  same  with 
communities.  The  childhood  of  the  European  nations  was 
passed  under  the  tutelage  of  the  clergy.  The  ascendency  of 
the  sacerdotal  drder  was  long  the  ascendency  which  naturally 
and  properly  belongs  to  intellectual  superiority.  The  priests, 
with  all  their  faults,  were  by  far  the  wisest  portion  of  society. 
It  was,  tlierefore,  on  the  whole,  good  that  they  should  be  re- 
spected and  obeyed.  The  encroachments  of  the  ecclesiastical 
power  on  the  province  of  the  civil  power  produced  much  more 
happiness  than  misery,  while  the  ecclesiastical  power  was  iu 
the  hands  of  the  only  class  that  had  studied  history,  philosophy, 
and  public  law,  and  while  the  civil  power  was  in  the  hands  of 
savage  chiefs,  who  could  not  read  their  own  grants  and  edicts. 
But  a  change  took  place.  Knowledge  gradually  spread  among 
laymen.  At  the  commencement  of  the  sixteenth  century  many 
of  them  were  in  every  intellectual  attainment  fully  equal  to  the 
most  enlightened  of  their  spiritual  pastors.  Thenceforward 
that  dominion,  which,  during  the  dark  ages,  had  been,  in  spite 
of  many  abuses,  a  legitimate  and  salutary  guardianship,  became 
an  unjust  and  noxious  tyranny. 

From  the  time  when  the  barbarians  overran  the  Western 
Empire  to  the  time  of  the  revival  of  letters,  the  influence  of  the 
Church  of  Rome  had  been  gelierally  favourable  to  science,  to 
civilisation,  and  to  good  government.  But,  during  the  last 
three  centuries,  to  stunt  the  growth  of  the  human  mind  has 
been  her  chief  object.     Throughout  Christendom,  whatever  ad- 


54  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

vance  has  been  made  in  knowledge,  in  freedom,  in  wealth,  and 
in  the  arts  of  life,  has  been  made  in  spite  of  her,  and  has  every- 
where been  in  inverse  proportion  to  her  power.  The  loveliest 
and  most  fertile  provinces  of  Europe  have,  under  her  rule,  been 
sunk  in  poverty,  in  political  servitude,  and  in  intellectual  tor- 
por, while  Protestant* countries,  once  proverbial  for  sterility 
and  barbarism,  have  been  turned  by  skill  and  industry  into 
gardens,  and  can  boast  of  a  long  list  of  heroes  and  statesmen, 
philosophers  and  poets.  Whoever,  knowing  what  Italy  and 
Scotland  naturally  are,  and  what,  four  hundred  years  ago,  they 
actually  were,  shall  now  compare  the  country  round  Rome  with 
the  country  round  Edinburgh,  will  be  able  to  form  some  judg- 
ment as  to  the  tendency  of  Papal  domination.  The  descent  of 
Spain,  once  the  first  among  monarchies,  to  the  lowest  depths  of 
degradation,  the  elevation  of  Holland,  in  spite  of  many  natural 
disadvantages,  to  a  position  such  as  no  commonwealth  so  small 
has  ever  reached,  teach  the  same  lesson.  "Whoever  passes  in 
Germany  from  a  Roman  Catholic  to  a  Protestant  principality, 
in  Switzerland  from  a  Roman  Catholic  to  a  Protestant  canton, 
in  Ireland  from  a  Roman  Catholic  to  a  Protestant  county,  finds 
that  he  has  passed  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  grade  of  civilisation. 
On  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  the  same  law  prevails.  The 
Protefetants  of  the  United  States  have  left  far  behind  them  the 
Roman  Catholics  of  Mexico,  Peru,  and  Brazil.  The  Roman 
Catholics  of  Lower  Canada  remain  inert,  while  the  whole  con- 
tinent round  them  is  in  a  ferment  with  Protestant  activity  and 
enterprise.  The  French  have  doubtless  shown  an  energy  and 
an  intelligence  which,  even  when  misdirected,  have  justly  en- 
titled them  to  be  called  a  great  people.  But  this  apparent 
exception,  when  examined,  will  be  found  to  confirm  the  rule  ; 
for  in  no  country  that  is  called  Roman  Catholic,  has  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  during  several  generations,  possessed  so  little 
authority  as  in  France.  The  literature  of  France  is  justly  held 
in  high  esteem  throughout  the  world.  But  if  we  deduct  from  that 
literature  all  that  belongs  to  four  parties  which  have  been,  on 
dififerent  grounds,  in  rebellion  against  the  Papal  domination,  all 
that  belongs  to  the  Protestants,  all  that  belongs  to  the  assert- 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  55 

ors  of  the  Gallican  liberties,  all  that  belongs  to  the  Jansenists, 
and  all  that  belongs  to  the  jihilosophers,  how  much  will  be  left  ? 

It  is  difficult  to  say  whether  England  owes  more  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  relicfion  or  to  the  Reformation.  For  the  amal- 
gamation  of  races  and  for  the  abolition  of  villenage,  she  is 
chiefly  indebted  to  ~lhe  influence  w^hich  the  priesthood  in  the 
middle  ages  exercised  over  the  laity.  For  political  and  intel- 
lectual freedom,  and  for  all  the  blessings  which  political  and 
intellectual  freedom  have  brought  in  their  train,  she  is  chiefly 
indebted  to  the  great  rebellion  of  the  laity  against  the  priest- 
hood. 

The  struggle  between  the  old  and  the  new  theology  in  our 
country  was  long,  and  the  event  sometimes  seemed  doubtful. 
There  were  two  extreme  parties,  prepared  to  act  with  violence 
or  to  suffer  with  stubborn  resolution.  Between  them  lay,  dur- 
ing a  considerable  time,  a  middle  party,  which  blended,  very 
illogically,  but  by  no  means  unnaturally,  lessons  learned  in  the 
nursery  with  the  sermons  of  the  modern  evangelists,  and,  while 
clinging  with  fondness  to  all  observances,  yet  detested  abuses 
with  which  those  observances  were  closely  connected.  Men  in 
such  a  frame  of  mind  were  willing  to  obey,  almost  with  thank- 
fulness, the  dictation  of  an  able  ruler  who  spared  them  the 
trouble  of  judging  for-themselves,  and,  raising  a  firm  and  com- 
manding voice  above  the  uproar  of  controversy,  told  them  how 
to  worsliip  and  wliat  to  believe.  It  is  not  strange,  therefore, 
that  the  Tudors  should  have  been  able  to  exercise  a  great  in- 
fluence on  ecclesiastical  affairs  ;  nor  is  it  strange  that  their  in- 
fluence should,  for  the  most  part,  have  been  exercised  with  a 
view  to  their  own  interest. 

Henry  the  Eighth  attempted  to  constitute  an  Anglican 
Church  differing  from  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  on  the  point 
of  the  supremacy,  and  on  that  point  alone.  His  success  in  this 
attempt  was  extraordinary.  The  force  of  his  character,  the 
singularly  favourable  situation  in  which  he  stood  with  respect  to 
foreign  powers,  the  immense  wealth  which  the  spoliation  of  the 
abbeys  placed  at  his  disposal,  and  the  support  of  that  class  which 
still  halted  between  two  opinions,  enabled  him  to  bid  defiance  to 


56  HISTORY   OF   ENGLA>:D. 

both  the  extreme  ruarties,  to  burn  as  heretics  those  who  avowed 
the  tenets  of  the  Reformers,  and  to  hang  as  traitors  those  who 
owned  the  authorxty  of  the  Pope.  But  Henry's  system  died 
with  him.  Had  his  lift  been  prolonged,  he  would  have  found  it 
difficult  to  maintain  a  position  assailed  with  equal  fury  by  all 
who  were  zealous  either  for  the  new  or  for  the  old  opinions. 
The  ministers  who  held  the  royal  prerogatives  in  trust  for  his 
infant  son  could  not  venture  to  persist  in  so  hazardous  a  policy; 
ncr  could  Elizabeth  venture  to  return  to  it.  It  v/as  necessary 
to  make  a  choice.  The  government  must  either  submit  to  Rome, 
or  must  obtain  the  aid  of  the  Protestants.  The  governmenl 
and  the  Protestants  had  only  one  thmg  m  common,  hatred  oi 
the  Papal  power.  The  English  Reformers  were  eager  to  go 
as  far  as  their  brethren  on  the  Continent.  They  unanimously 
condemned  as  Antichristian  numerous  dogmas  and  practices  to 
which  Henry  had  stubbornly  adhered,  and  which  Elizabeth  re- 
luctantly aban.doned.  Many  felt  a  strong  repugnance  even  to 
things  indifferent  which  had  formed  part  of  the  polity  or  ritual 
of  the  /mystical  Babylon.  Thus  Bishop  Hooper,  who  died  man- 
fully :,  Gloucester  for  his  religion,  long  refused  to  wear  the 
episcopal  vestments.  Bishop  Ridley,  a  martyr  of  still  greater 
renown,  pulled  down  the  ancient  altars  of  his  diocese,  and  order- 
ed the  Eucharist  to  be  administered  in  the  middle  of  churches, 
at  tables  which  the  Papists  irreverently  termed  oyster  boards. 
Bishop  Jewel  pronounced  the  clerical  garb  to  be  a  stage  dress, 
a  fool's  coat,  a  relique  of  the  Amorites,  and  promised  that  he 
would  spare  no  labour  to  extirpate  such  degrading  absurdities. 
Arch'  Ishop  Grindal  long  hesitated  about  accepting  a  mitre  from 
dislike  of  what  he  regarded  as  the  mummery  of  consecration. 
Bishop  Farkhurst  uttered  a  fervent  prayer  that  the  Church  of 
England  would  propose  to  herself  the  Church  of  Zurich  as  the 
absolute  pattern  of  a  Christian  community.  Bishop  Ponet  was 
of  opinion  that  the  word  Bishop  should  be  abandoned  to  the 
Papists,  and  that  the  chief  officers  of  the  purified  church  should 
be  called  Superintendents.  When  it  is  considered  that  none  of 
these  prelates  beionged  to  the  extreme  section  oC  tke  Protestant 
party,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that,  if  the  general  sense  of  that 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  57 

party  had  been  followed,  the  work  of  reform  would  have  been 
cawied  on  as  unsparingly  in  England  as  in  Scotland. 

But,  as  the  government  needed  the  support  of  the  Protes- 
tants, so  the  Protestants  needed  the  protection  of  the  government. 
Much  was  therefore  given  up  on  both  sides  :  an  union  was 
effected  ;  and  the  fruit  of  that  union  was  the  Church  of  England. 

To  the  peculiarities  of  this  great  institution,  and  to  the  strong 
passions  which  it  has  called  forth  in  the  minds  both  of  friends 
and  of  enemies,  are  to  be  attributed  many  of  the  rnest  impor- 
tant events  which  have,  since  the  Reformation,  taken  place  in 
our  country  ;  nor  can  the  secular  history  of  England  be  at  all 
understood  by  us,  unless  we  study  it  in  constant  connection  with 
the  history  of  her  ecclesiastical  polity. 

The  man  wlio  took  the  chief  part  in  settling  the  conditions 
of  the  alliance  which  produced  the  Anglican  Church  Avas  Arch- 
bishop Cranmer.  He  was  the  representative  of  botli  the  parties 
which,  at  tliat  time,  needed  each  other's  assistance.  He  was  at 
once  a  divine  and  a  courtier.  In  his  character  of  divine  he  was 
perfectly  ready  to  go  as  far  in  the  way  of  change  as  any  Swiss 
or  Scottish  Reformer.  In  his  character  of  courtier  he  was  de- 
sirous to  preserve  that  organisation  which  had,  during  many 
ages,  admirably  served  the  purposes  of  the  Bishops  of  Rome, 
and  might  be  expected  now  to  serve  equally  well  the  purposes 
of  the  English  Kings  and  of  their  ministers.  His  temper  and 
his  understanding  eminently  fitted  him  to  act  as  mediator. 
Saintly  in  his  professions,  unscrupulous  in  his  dealings,  zealous 
for  nothing,  bold  in  speculation,  a  coward  and  a  timeserver  in 
action,  a  placable  enemy  and  a  lukewarm  friend,  he  was  in  every 
way  qualified  to  arrange  the  terms  of  the  coalition  between  the 
religious  and  the  worldly  enemies  of  Popery. 

To  this  day  the  constitution,  the  doctrines,  and  the  services 
of  the  Church,  retain  the  visible  marks  of  the  compromise  from 
which  she  sprang.  She  occupies  a  middle  position  between  the 
Churches  of  Rome  and  Geneva.  Her  doctrinal  confessions  and 
discourses,  composed  by  Protestants,  set  forth  principles  of 
theology  in  which  Calvin  or  Knox  would  have  found  scarcely  a 
word  to  disapprove.      Her  prayers  and  thanksgivings,  derived 


58  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

from  the  ancient  Breviaries,  are  very  generally  such  that 
Cardinal  Fisher  or  Cardinal  Pole  might  have  heartily  joined  in 
them.  A  controversialist  who  puts  an  Arminian  sense  on  her 
Articles  and  Homilies  will  be  pronounced  by  candid  men  to  be  as 
unreasonable  as  a  controversialist  who  denies  that  the  doctrine 
of  baptismal  regeneration  can  be  discovered  in  her  Liturgy. 

The  Church  of  Rome  held  that  episcopacy  was  of  divine 
institution,  and  that  certain  supernatural  graces  of  a  high  order 
had  been  transmitted  by  the  imposition  of  hands  through  fifty 
generations,  from  the  Eleven  who  received  their  commission  on 
the  Galilean  mount,  to  the  bishops  who  met  at  Trent.  A  large 
body  of  Protestants,  on  the  other  hand,  regarded  prelacy  as 
positively  unlawful,  and  persuaded  themselves  that  they  found 
a  very  different  form  of  ecclesiastical  government  prescribed  in 
Scriptui-e.  The  founders  of  the  Anglican  Church  took  a  middle 
course.  They  retained  episcopacy  ;  but  they  did  not  declare  it 
to  be  an  institution  essential  to  the  welfare  of  a  Christian  society, 
or  to  the  efficacy  of  the  sacraments.  Cranmer,  indeed,  on  one  im- 
portant occasion,  plainly  avowed  his  conviction  that,  in  tke  prim 
itive  times,  there  was  no  distinction  between  bishops  and  priests, 
and  that  the  laying  on  of  hands  was  altogether  superfluous. 

Among  the  Presbyterians  the  conduct  of  public  worship  is, 
to  a  great  extent,  left  to  the  minister.  Theic  prayers,  there- 
fore, are  not  exactly  the  same  in  any  two  assemblies  on  the 
same  day,  or  on  any  two  days  in  the  same  assembly.  In  one 
parish  they  are  fervent,  eloquent,  and  full  of  meaning.  In  the 
next  parish  they  may  be  languid  or  absurd.  The  priests  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  on  the  other  hand,  have,  during  many 
generations,  daily  chaunted  the  same  ancient  confessions,  sup- 
plications, and  thanksgivings,  in  India  and  Lithuania,  in  Ireland 
and  Peru.  The  service,  being  in  a  dead  language,  is  intelligible 
only  to  the  learned  ;  and  the  great  majority  of  the  congregation 
may  be  said  to  assist  as  spectators  rather  than  as  auditors. 
Here,  again,  the  Church  of  England  took  a  middle  course.  She 
copied  the  Roman  Catholic  forms  of  prayer,  but  translated  them 
into  the  vulojar  tonsfue,  and  invited  the  illiterate  multitude  to 
join  its  voice  to  that  of  the  minister. 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  59 

In  every  part  of  her  system  the  same  policy  may  be  traced. 
Utterly  rejecting  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation,  and  con- 
demning as  idolatrous  all  adoration  paid  to  the  sacramental  bread 
and  wine,  she  yet,  to  the  disgust  of  the  Puritan,  required  her 
children  to  receive  the  memorials  of  divine  love,  meekly  kneeling 
upon  their  knees.  Discarding  many  rich  vestments  which  sur- 
rounded the  altars  of  the  ancient  faith,  she  yet  retained,  to  the 
horror  of  weak  minds,  a  robe  of  white  linen,  typical  of  the 
purity  which  belonged  to  her  as  the  mystical  spouse  of  Christ. 
Discarding  a  crowd  of  {Dantomimic  gestures  which,  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  worship,  are  substituted  for  intelligible  words,  she  yet 
shocked  many  rigid  Protestants  by  marking  the  infant  just 
sprinkled  from  the  font  with  the  sign  of  the  cross.  The 
Roman  Catholic  addressed  his  prayers  to  a  multitude  of  Saints, 
among  whom  were  numbered  many  men  of  doubtful,  and  some 
of  hateful,  character.  The  Puritan  refused  the  addition  of  Saint 
even  to  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  and  to  the  disciple  whom 
Jesus  loved.  The  Church  of  England,  though  she  asked  for 
the  intercession  of  no  created  being,  still  set  apart  days  for  the 
commemoration  of  some  who  had  done  and  suffered  great  things 
for  the  faith.  She  retained  confirmation  and  ordination  as 
edifying  rites  ;  but  she  degraded  them  from  the  rank  of  sacra- 
ments. Shrift  was  no  part  of  her  system.  Yet  she  gently 
invited  the  dying  penitent  to  confess  his  sins  to  a  divine,  and 
empowered  her  ministers  to  soothe  the  departing  soul  by  an 
absolution  which  breathes  the  very  spirit  of  the  old  religion.  In 
general  it  may  be  said  that  she  appeals  more  to  the  understand- 
ing, and  less  to  the  senses  and  the  imagination,  than  the  Church 
of  Rome,  and  that  she  appeals  less  to  the  understanding,  and 
more  to  the  senses  and  imagination,  than  the  Protestant 
Churches -of  Scotland,  France,  and  Switzerland. 

Nothing,  however,  so  strongly  distinguished  the  Church  of 
England  from  other  Churches  as  the  relation  in  which  she  stood 
to  the  monai'chy.  The  King  was  her  head.  The  limits  of  the 
authority  which  he  possessed,  as  such,  were  not  traced,  and 
indeed  have  never  yet  been  traced  with  precision.  The  laws 
which  declared  him  supreme  in  ecclesiastical  matters  were  drawn 


60  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

rudely  and  in  general  terms.  If,  for  the  purpose  of  ascertain- 
ing the  sense  of  those  laws,  we  examine  the  books  and  lives  of 
those  who  founded  the  English  Church,  our  perplexity  will  be 
increased.  For  the  founders  of  the  English  Church  wrote  and 
acted  in  an  age  of  violent  intellectual  fermentation,  and  of  con- 
stant action  and  reaction.  They  therefore  often  contradicted 
each  other,  and  sometimes  contradicted  themselves.  That  the 
King  was,  under  Christ,  sole  head  of  the  Church,  was  a  doctrine 
which  they  all  with  one  voice  affirmed  :  but  those  words  ha,d 
very  different  significations  in  different  mouths,  and  in  the  same 
mouth  at  different  conjunctures.  Sometimes  an  authority  which 
would  have  satisfied  Hildebrand  was  ascribed  to  the  sovereign  : 
then  it  dwindled  down  to  an  authority  little  more  than  that 
which  had  been  claimed  by  many  ancient  English  princes  who 
had  been  in  constant  communion  with  the  Church  of  Rome. 
What  Henry  and  his  favourite  counsellors  meant,  at  one  time, 
by  the  supremacy,  was  certainly  nothing  less  than  the  whole 
power  of  the  keys.  The  King  was  to  be  the  Pope  of  his  king- 
dom, the  vicar  of  God,  the  expositor  of  Catholic  verity,  the 
channel  of  sacramental  o-races.  He  arroijated  to  himself  the 
right  of  deciding  dogmatically  what  was  orthodox  doctrine  and 
what  was  heresy,  of  drawing  up  and  imposing  confessions  of 
faith,  and  of  giving  religious  instruction  to  his  people.  He 
proclaimed  that  all  jurisdiction,  spiritual  as  well  as  temporal, 
was  derived  from  him  alone,  and  that  it  was  in  his  power  to 
confer  episcopal  authority,  and  to  take  it  away.  He  actually 
ordered  his  seal  to  be  put  to  commissions  by  which  bishops  were 
a^ipointed,  who  were  to  exercise  their  functions  as  his  deputies, 
and  during  his  pleasure.  According  to  this  system,  as  expounded 
by  Cranmer,  the  King  was  the  spiritual  as  well  as  the  temporal 
chief  of  the  nation.  In  both  capacities  His  Highness  must 
have  lieutenants.  As  he  appointed  civil  officers  to  keep  his 
seal,  to  collect  his  revenues,  and  to  dispensie  justice  in  his  name, 
so  he  appointed  divines  of  various  ranks  to  preach  the  gospel, 
and  to  administer  the  sacraments.  It  was  unnecessary  that 
there  should  be  any  imposition  of  hands.  The  King, — such 
vv^s  the  opinion,  of  Cranmer  given   in   the   plainest  words, — 


BEFORE    THE    KESTOIiATION.  61 

might,  in  virtue  of  authority  derived  from  God,  make  a  priest ; 
and  the  priest  so  made  needed  no  ordination  whatever.  These 
opinions  the  Archbisliop,  in  spite  of  tlie  opposition  of  less 
courtl}^  divines,  followed  out  to  every  legitimate  consequence. 
He  held  that  his  own  spiritual  functions,  like  the  secular 
functions  of  the  Chancellor  and  Treasurer,  were  at  once  deter- 
mined by  a  demise  of  the  crown.  When  Henry  died,  there- 
fore, the  Primate  and  his  suffragans  took  out  fresh  commissions, 
emjaowering  them  to  ordain  and  to  govern  the  Church  till  the 
new  sovereiffu  should  think  fit  to  order  otherwise.  When  it 
was  objected  that  a  power  to  bind  and  to  loose,  altogether 
distinct  from  temporal  power,  had  been  given  by  our  Lord  to 
his  apostles,  some  theologians  of  this  school  replied  that  the 
power  to  bind  and  to  loose  had  descended,  not  to  the  clergy, 
but  to  the  whole  body  of  Christian  men,  and  ought  to  be 
exercised  by  the  chief  magistrate  as  the  representative  of  the 
society.  When  it  was  objected  that  Saint  Paul  had  spoken  of 
certain  persons  whom  the  Holy  Ghost  had  made  overseers  and 
shepherds  of  the  faithful,  it  was  answered  that  King  Henry 
was  the  very  overseer,  the  very  shepherd,  whom  the  Holy 
Ghost  had  appointed,  and  to  whom  the  expressions  of  Saint 
Paul  applied.* 

These  high  pretensions  gave  scandal  to  Protestants  as  well 
as  to  Catholics ;  and  the  scandal  was  greatly  increased  when 
the  supremacy,  which  Mary  had  resigned  back  to  the  Pope,  was 
again  annexed  to  the  ci'own,  on  the  accession  of  Elizabeth. 
It  seemed  monstrous  that  a  woman  should  be  the  chief  bishop 
of  a  Church  in  which  an  apostle  had  forbidden  her  even  to  let 
her  voice  be  heard.  The  Queen,  therefore,  found  it  necessary 
expressly  to  disclaim  that  sacerdotal  character  which  her  father 
had  assumed,  and  which,  according  to  Cranmer,  had  been 
inseparably  joined,  by  divine  ordinance,  to  the  regal  function. 
When  the  Anglican  confession  of  faith  was  revised  in  her 
reign,  the  supremacy  was  explained  in  a  manner  somewhat 
different  from  that  which  had  been  fashionable  at  the  court  of 

•  See  a  very  curious  paper  which  Strype  believed  to  be  in  Gardiner's  band' 
writing.    EccleBiastical  Memorials,  Book  I.,  Chap,  xvii,  , 


62  HISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Henry.  Cranmer  had  declared,  in  emphatic  terms,  that  God 
had  immediately  committed  to  Christian  princes  the  whole  cure 
of  all  their  subjects,  as  well  concerning  the  administration  of 
God's  word  for  the  cure  of  souls,  as  concerning  the  administra- 
tion of  things  political.*  The  thirty-seventh  article  of  religion, 
framed  under  Elizabeth,  declares,  in  terms  as  emphatic,  that 
the  ministering  of  Goil's  word  does  not  belong  to  princes.  The 
Queen,  however,  s'till  had  over  the  Church  a  visitatorial  power 
of  vast  and  undefined  extent.  She  was  entrusted  by  Parlia- 
ment with  the  office  of  restraining  and  punishing  heresy  and 
every  sort  of  ecclesiastical  abuse,  and  was  permitted  to  dele- 
gate her  authority  to  commissioners.  The  Bishops  were  little 
more  than  her  ministers.  Rather  than  grant  to  the  civil  magis- 
trate the  absolute  power  of  nominat  ng  spiritual  pastors,  the 
Church  of  Rome,  in  the  eleventh  cei?tury,  set  all  Europe  on 
fire.  Rather  than  grant  to  the  civil  magistrate  the  absolute 
power  of  nominating  spiritual  pastors,  the  ministers  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland,  in  our  time,  resigned  their  livings  by  hun- 
dreds. The  Church  of  England  had  no  such  scruples.  By 
the  royal  authority  alone  her  prelates  were  appointed.  By  the 
royal  authority  alone  her  Convocations  were  summoned,  regu- 
lated, prorogued,  and  dissolved.  Without  the  royal  sanction  her 
canons  had  no  force.  One  of  the  articles  of  her  faith  was  that 
without  the  royal  consent  no  ecclesiastical  council  could  law- 
fully assemble.  From  all  her  judicatures  an  appeal  lay,  in  the 
last  resort,  to  the  sovereign,  even  when  the  question  was 
whether  an  opinion  ought  to  be  accounted  heretical,  or  whether 
the  administration  of  a  sacrament  had  been  valid.  Nor  did  the 
Church  grudge  this  extensive  power  to  our  princes.  By  them 
she  had  been  called  into  existence,  nursed  through  a  feeble  in- 
fancy, guarded  from  Papists  on  one  side  and  from  Puritans  on 
the  other,  protected  against  Parliaments  which  bore  her  no 
good  will,  and  avenged  on  literary  assailants  whom  she  found 
it  hard  to  answer.  Thus  gratitude,  hope,  fear,  common  attach- 
ments,  common   enmities,  bound   her  to   the   throne.     All  her 

•The.se  are  Cranmer's  own  words.    See  tlie  Appendix  to  Burnet's  History 
of  the  Refonnation,  Parti.  Book  III.  No.  21.  Questjoa  9, 


BEKORK    THE    RESTORATION.  63 

traditions,  an  her  tastes,  were  monarchical.  Loyalty  became  a 
point  of  professional  honour  among  her  clergy,  the  peculiar 
badge  which  distinguished  them  at  once  from  Calvinists  and 
from  Papists.  Both  the  Calvinists  and  the  Papists,  widely  as 
they  differed  in  other  respects,  regarded  with  extreme  jealousy 
all  encroachments  of  the  temporal  power  on  the  domain  of  the 
spiritual  power.  Both  Calvinists  and  Papists  maintained  that 
subjects  might  justifiably  draw  the  sword  against  ungodly  rulers. 
In  France  Calvinists  resisted  Charles  the  Ninth:  Papists  re- 
sisted Henry  the  Fourth  :  both  Papists  and  Calvinists  resisted 
Henry  the  Third.  In  Scotland  Calvinists  led  Mary  captive. 
On  the  north  of  the  Trent  Papists  took  arms  against  the  Eng- 
lish throne.  The  Church  of  England  meantime  condemned 
both  Calvinists  and  Papists,  and  loudly  boasted  that  no  duty 
was  more  constantly  or  earnestly  inculcated  by  her  than  that  of 
submission  to  princes. 

The  advantages  which  the  crown  derived  from  this  close 
alliance  with  the  Established  Church  were  great ;  but  they 
were  not  without  serious  drawbacks.  The  compromise  arranged 
by  Cranmer  had  from  the  first  been  considered  by  a  large 
body  of  Protestaats  as  a  scheme  for  serving  two  masters,  as  an 
attempt  to  unite  the  worship  of  the  Lord  with  the  wprship  of 
Baal.  In  the  days  of  Edward  the.  Sixth  the  scruples  of  this 
party  had  repeatedly  thrown  great  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the 
government.  When  Elizabeth  came  to  the  throne,  those  diffi- 
culties were  much  increased.  Violence  naturally  engenders 
violence.  The  spirit  of  Protestantism  was  therefore  far  fiercer 
and  more  intolerant  after  the  cruelties  of  Mary  than  before 
them.  Many  persons  who  were  warmly  attached  to  the  new 
opinions  had,  during  the  evil  days,  taken  refuge  in  Switzerland 
and  Germany.  They  had  been  hospitably  received  by  their 
brethren  in  the  faith,  had  sate  at  the  feet  of  the  great  doctors  of 
Strasbui'g,  Zurich,  and  Geneva,  and  had  been,  during  some 
years,  accustomed  to  a  more  simple  worship,  and  to  a  more 
democratical  form  of  church  government,  than  England  had  yet 
seen.  These  men  returned  to  their  country  convinced  that  the 
reform  which  had  been  effected   under  King  Edward  had  been 


^4.  HISTORr    OP    ENGLAND. 

far  less  searching  and  extensive  than  the  interests  of  pure  re- 
ligion required.  But  it  was  in  vain  that  they  attempted  to  ob- 
tain any  concession  from  Elizabeth.  Indeed  her  system,  where- 
ever  it  differed  from  her  brother's,  seemed  to  them  to  differ  for 
the  worse.  They  were  little  disposed  to  submit,  in  matters  of 
faith,  to  any  human  authority.  They  had  recently,  in  reliance 
on  their  own  interpretation  of  Scripture,  risen  up  against  a 
Church  strong  in  immemorial  antiquity  and  catholic  consent.  It 
was  by  no  common  exertion  of  intellectual  energy  that  they 
had  thrown  off  the  yoke  of  that  gorgeous  and  imperial  supersti- 
tion ;  and  it  was  vain  to  expect  that,  immediately  after  such  an 
emancipation,  they  would  patiently  submit  to  a  new  spiritual 
tyranny.  Long  accustomed,  when  the  priest  lifted  up  the 
host,  to  bow  down  with  their  faces  to  tlie  earth,  as  before  a 
present  God,  they  had  learned  to  treat  the  mass  as  an  idola- 
trous mummery.  Long  accustomed  to  regard  the  Pope  as  the 
successor  of  the  chief  of  the  apostles,  as  the  bearer  of  the  keys 
of  earth  and  heaven,  they  had  learned  to  regard  him  as  the 
Beast,  the  Antichrist,  the  Man  of  Sin.  It  was  not  to  be  expect- 
ed that  they  would  immediately  transfer  to  an  upstart  authority 
the  homage  which  they  had  withdrawn  from  the  Vatican ;  that 
they  would  submit  their  private  judgment  to  the  authority  of  a 
Church  founded  on  private  judgment  alone ;  that  they  would 
be  afraid  to  dissent  from  teachers  who  themselves  dissented 
from  what  had  lately  been  the  universal  faith  of  western  Chris- 
tendom. It  is  easy  to  conceive  the  indignation  which  must 
have  been  felt  by  bold  and  inquisitive  spirits,  glorying  in  newly 
acquired  freedom,  when  an  institution  younger  by  many  years 
than  themselves,  an  institution  which  had,  under  their  own 
eyes,  gradually  received  its  form  from  the  passions  and  interests 
of  a  court,  began  to  mimic  the  lofty  style  of  Rome. 

Since  these  men  could  not  be  convinced,  it  was  determined 
that  they  should  be  persecuted.  Persecution  produced  its  natu- 
ral effect  on  them.  It  found  them  a  sect :  it  made  them  a 
faction.  To  their  hatred  of  the  Church  was  now  added  hatred 
of  the  Crown.  The  two  sentiments  were  intermingled ;  and 
each  embittered  the  other.     The   opinions  of  the   Puritan  con- 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  65 

cerulng  the  relation  of  ruler  and  subject  were  widely  different 
from  those  which  were  inculcated  in  the  Homilies.  His  favour- 
ite divines  had,  both  by  precept  and  by  example,  encouraged 
resistance  to  tyrants  and  persecutors.  His  fellow  Calvinists 
in  France,  in  Holland,  and  in  Scotland,  were  in  arms  against 
idolatrous  and  cruel  princes.  His  notions,  too,  respecting  the 
government  of  the  state  took  a  tinge  from  his  notions  respect- 
ing the  government  of  the  Church.  Some  of  the  sarcasms 
which  were  popularly  thrown  on  episcopacy  might,  without  much 
difficulty,  be  turned  against  royalty  ;  and  many  of  the  arguments 
which  were  used  to  prove  that  spiritual  power  was  best  lodged 
in  a  synod  seemed  to  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  temporal  power 
was  best  lodged  in  a  parliament. 

Thus,  as  the  priest  of  the  Established  Church  was,  from 
interest,  from  principle,  and  from  passion,  zealous  for  tlie  royal 
prerogatives,  the  Puritan  was,  from  interest,  from  principle, 
and  from  passion,  hostile  to  them.  The  power  of  the  discontented 
sectaries  was  great.  They  were  found  in  every  rank  :  but  they 
were  strongest  among  the  mercantile  classes  in  the  towns,  and 
among  the  small  proprietors  in  the  country.  Early  in  the  reign 
of  Elizabeth  they  began  to  return  a  majority  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  And  doubtless,  had  our  ancestors  been  then  at 
liberty  to  fix  their  attention  entirely  on  domestic  questions,  the 
strife  between  the  C)'own  and  the  Parliament  would  instantly 
have  commenced.  But  that  was  no  season  for  internal  dissen- 
sions. It  might,  indeed,  well  be  doubted  whether  the  firmest 
union  among  all  the  orders  of  the  state  could  avert  the  common 
danger  by  which  all  were  threatened.  Roman  Catholic  Europe 
and  reformed  Europe  were  struggling  for  death  or  life.  France 
divided  against  herself,  had,  for  a  time,  ceased  to  be  of  any 
account  in  Christendom.  The  Enirlish  Government  was  at  the 
head  of  the  Protestant  interest,  and,  while  persecuting  Presby- 
terians* at  home,  extended  a  powerful  protection  to  Presbyte- 
rian Churches  abroad.  At  the  head  of  the  opposite  party  was 
the  mightiest  prince  of  the  age,  a  prince  who  ruled  Spain, 
Portugal,  Italy,  the  East  and  the  West  Indies,  whose  ar.uies 
repeatedly  marched  to  Paris,  and  whose  fleets  kept  the  coasts  of 


66  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Devonshire  and  Sussex  in  alarm.  It  long  seemed  probable 
that  Englishmen  would  have  to  fight  desperately  on  English 
ground  for  their  religion  and  independence.  Nor  were  they 
ever  for  a  moment  free  from  apprehensions  of  some  great  trea- 
son at  home.  For  in  that  age  it  had  become  a  point  of  con- 
science and  of  honour  with  many  men  of  generous  natures  to 
sacrifice  their  country  to  their  religion.  A  succession  of  dark 
plots,  formed  by  Roman  Catholics  against  the  life  of  the  Queen 
and  the  existence  of  the  nation,  kept  society  in  constant  alarm. 
Whatever  might  be  the  faults  of  Elizabeth,  it  was  plain  that, 
to  speak  humanly,  the  fate  of  the  realm  and  of  all  reformed 
Churches  was  staked  on  tho  security  of  her  person  and  on  the 
success  of  her  administration.  To  strengthen  her  hands  was, 
therefore,  the  first  duty  of  a  patriot  and  a  Protestant ;  and 
that  duty  was  well  performed.  The  Puritans,  even  in  the 
depths  of  the  prisons  to  which  she  had  sent  them,  prayed,  and 
with  no  simulated  fervour,  that  she  might  be  ke[)t  from  the  dag- 
ger of  the  assassin,  that  rebellion  might  be  put  down  under  her 
feet,  and  that  her  arms  might  be  victorious  by  sea  and  land. 
One  of  the  most  stubborn  of  the  stubborn  sect,  immediately 
after  his  hand  had  been  lopped  off  for  an  offence  into  which  he 
had  been  hurried  by  his  intemperate  zeal,  waved  his  hat  with 
the  hand  which  was  still  left  him,  and  shouted  "  God  save  the 
Queen  !  "  The  sentiment  with  which  these  men  regarded  her  has 
descended  to  their  posterity.  The  Nonconformists,  rigorously 
as  she  treated  them,  have,  as  a  body,  always  venerated  her 
memory.* 

During  the  greater  part  of  her  reign,  therefore,  the  Puritans 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  though  sometimes  mutinous,  felt  no 
disposition  to  array  themselves  in  systematic  opposition  to  the 

*  The  Puritan  historian,  Neal,  after  censuring  the  cruelty  with  which  she 
treated  the  sect  to  which  he  belonged,  concludes  tlius  :  "  However,  notwithstand- 
ing all  these  blemishes.  Queen  Elizabeth  stands  upon  record  as  a  wise  and  politic 
princess,  for  dtdivering  her  kingdom  from  the  difficulties  in  which  it  was  in- 
volved at  her  accession,  for  preserving  the  Protestant  reformation  against  thepo^ 
tent  attempts  of  the  Pope,  tlie  Emperor,  and  King  of  Spain  abroad,  ai;d  the  Queen 
of  Scots  and  her  Popish  subjects  at  home.  .  .  .  She  was  the  glory  of  the  F<^e  in 
which  she  lived,  and  will  be  the  admiration  of  posterity." — History  of  the  i?uri- 
'ians,  Part  I.  Chap.  viii. 


BEFORK    THE   RESTORATION.  67 

government.  But.  when  the  defeat  of  the  Armada,  the  snecess- 
ful  resistance  of  the  United  Provinces  to  the  Spanish  jjower,  tlie 
firm  establishment  of  Henry  the  Fourth  on  the  throne  of  France, 
and  the  death  of  Philip  the  Second,  had  secured  the  State  and 
the  Church  against  all  danger  fi'om  abroad,  an  obstinate  strug- 
gle, destined  to  last  during  several  generations,  instantly  began 
at  home. 

It  was  in  the  Parliament  of  1601  that  the  opposition  which 
had,  during  forty  years,  been  silently  gathering  and  husbanding 
strength,  fought  its  first  great  battle  and  won  its  first  victory. 
The  ground  was  well  chosen.  The  English  Sovereigns  had  al- 
ways been  entrusted  with  the  supreme  direction  of  commercial 
police.  It  was  their  undoubted  prerogative  to  regulate  coin, 
weights,  and  measures,  and  to  appoint  fairs,  markets,  and  ports. 
The  line  which  bounded  their  authoritv  over  trade  had,  as  usual, 
been  but  loosely  drawn.  They  therefore,  as  usual,  encroached 
on  the  province  which  rightfully  belonged  to  the  legislature. 
The  encroachment  was,  as  usual,  patiently  borne,  till  it  became 
serious.  But  at  length  the  Queen  took  upon  herself  to  grant 
patents  of  monopoly  by  scores.  There  was  scarcely  a  family  in 
the  realm  which  did  not  feel  itself  aggrieved  by  the  oppression 
and  extortion  which  this  abuse  naturally  caused.  Iron,  oil,  vine- 
gar, coal,  saltpetre,  lead,  starch,  yarn,  skins,  leather,  glass,  could 
be  bought  only  at  exorbitant  prices.  The  House  of  Commons 
met  in  an  angry  and  determined  mood.  It  was  in  vain  that  a 
courtly  minority  blamed  the  Speaker  for  suffering  the  acts  of 
the  Queen's  Highness  to  be  called  in  question.  The  language  of 
the  discontented  party  was  high  and  menacing,  and  was  echoed 
by  the  voice  of  the  whole  nation.  The  coach  of  the  chief  min- 
ister of  the  crown  was  surrounded  by  an  indignant  populace,  who 
cursed  the  monopolies,  and  exclaimed  that  the  prerogative  should 
not  be  suffered  to  touch  the  old  liberties  of  England.  There 
seemed  for  a  moment  to  be  some  danger  that  the  long  and  glo- 
rious reign  of  Elizabeth  would  have  a  shameful  and  disastrous 
end.  She,  however,  with  admirable  judgment  and  temper,  de- 
clined the  contest,  put  herself  at  the  head  of  the  reforming  par- 
ty, redressed  the  grievance,  thanked  the  Commons,  in  touching 


68  HISTOKY    OI-'    KNGLANO. 

raid  dignified  language,  for  tiieir  tender  care  of  the  general  weal, 
brought  back  to  herself  the  hearts  of  the  people,  and  left  to  her 
successors  a  memorable  example  of  the  way  in  which  it  behoves 
a  ruler  to  deal  with  public  movements  which  he  has  not  the 
means  of  resisting. 

In  the  year  1603  the  great  Queen  died.  That  year  is,  on 
many  accounts,  one  of  the  most  important  epochs  in  our  history. 
It  was  then  that  both  Scotland  and  Ireland  became  parts  of  the 
same  empire  with  England.  Both  Scotland  and  Ireland,  indeed, 
had  been  subjugated  by  the  Plantagenets ;  but  neither  country 
had  been  patient  under  the  yoke.  Scotland  had,  "with  heroic 
energy,  vindicated  her  independence,  had,  from  the  time  of  Rob- 
ert Bruce,  been  a  separate  kingdom,  and  was  now  joined  to  the 
southern  part  of  the  island  in  a  manner  which  rather  gratified 
than  wounded  her  national  pride.  Ireland  had  never,  since  the 
days  of  Henry  the  Second,  been  able  to  expel  the  foreign  invad- 
ers ;  but  she  had  struggled  against  them  long  and  fiercely.  Dur- 
ing the  fourteenth  and  fifteenbli  centuries  the  English  power  in 
that  island  was  constantly  declining,  and  in  the  days  of  Henry 
the  Seventh,  sank  to  the  lowest  point.  The  Irish  dominions  of 
that  prince  consisted  only  of  the  counties  of  Dublin  and  Louth, 
of  some  parts  of  Meath  and  Kildare,  and  of  a  few  seaports 
scattered  along  the  coast.  A  large  portion  even  of  Leinster 
was  not  yet  divided  into  counties.  Munster,  Ulster,  and  Con- 
naught  were  ruled  by  petty  sovereigns,  partly  Celts,  and  partly 
degenerate  Normans,  who  had  forgotten  their  origin  and  had 
adopted  the  Celtic  language  and  manners.  But  during  the  six- 
teenth century,  the  English  power  had  made  great  progress. 
The  half  savage  chieftains  who  reigned  beyond  the  pale  had  sub- 
mitted one  after  another  to  the  lieutenants  of  the  Tudors.  At 
fcngth,  a  few  weeks  before  the  death  of  Elizabeth,  the  conquest, 
which  had  been  begun  more  than  four  hundred  years  before  by 
Strongbow,  was  completed  by  Mountjoy.  Scarcely  had  James 
the  First  mounted  the  Engrlish  throne  when  the  last  O'Donnel  and 
O'Neil  who  have  held  the  rank  of  independent  princes  kissed 
his  hand  at  "Whitehall.  Thenceforward  his  writs  ran  and  his 
judges  held  astsizes  in  every  ^jart  of  Ireland ;  and  the  English 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  69 

law  superseded  the  customs  which  had  prevailed  among  the 
aboriginal  tribes. 

In  extent  Scotland  and  Ireland  were  nearly  equal  to  each 
other,  and  were  together  nearly  equal  to  England,  but  were 
much  less  thickly  peopled  than  England,  and  were  very  far 
behind  Enoland  iu  wealth  and  civilisation.  Scotland  had  been 
kept  back  by  the  sterility  of  her  soil ;  and,  in  the  midst  of 
light,  the  thick  .darkness  of  the  middle  ages  still  rested  on  Ire- 
land. 

The  population  of  Scotland,  with  the  exception  of  the  Cel- 
tic tribes  which  were  thinly  scattered  over  the  Hebrides  and 
over  the  mountainous  parts  of  the  northern  shires,  was  of  the 
same  blood  with  the  population  of  England,  and  spoke  a 
tongue  which  did  not  differ  from  the  purest  English  more  than 
the  dialects  of  Somersetshire  and  Lancasliire  differed  from  each 
other.  Iu  Ireland,  on  the  contrary,  the  population,  with  the 
exception  of  the  small  English  colony  near  the  coast,  was  Cel- 
tic, and  still  kept  the  Celtic  speech  and  manners. 

In  natural  courao'e  and  intelliijence  both  the  nations  which 
now  became  connected  with  England  ranked  high.  In  perse- 
verance, in  selfcommand,  in  forethought,  in  all  the  virtues 
which  conduce  to  success  in  life,  the  Scots  have  never  been 
surpassed.  The  Irish,  on  the  other  hand,  were  distinguished 
by  qualities  which  tend  to  make  men  interesting  rather  than 
prosperous.  They  were  an  ardent  and  impetuous  race,  easily 
moved  to  tears  or  to  laughter,  to  fury  or  to  love.  Alone  among 
the  nations  of  northern  Eurojie  they  had  the  susceptibility,  the 
vivacity,  the  natural  turn  for  acting  and  rhetoric,  which  are 
indiiienous  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea.  In  mental 
cultivation  Scotland  had  an  indisputable  superiority.  Though 
that  kingdom  was  then  the  poorest  in  Christendom,  it  already 
vied  in  every  branch  of  learning  with  the  most  favoured  coun- 
tries. Scotsmen,  whose  dwellings  and  whose  food  were  as 
wretched  as  those  of  the  Icelanders  of  our  time,  wrote  Latin 
verse  with  more  than  the  delicacy  of  Vida,  and  made  discoveries 
in  science  which  would  have  added  to  the  renown  of  Galileo. 
Ireland  could  boast  of  no  Buchanan  or  Napier.     The  genius, 


70  •  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

with  which  her  aboriginal  inhabitants  were  largely  endo^fed, 
showed  '"^self  as  yet  only  in  ballads  which,  wild  and  rugged  as 
they  w^'fe,  seemed  to  the  judging  eye  of  Spenser  to  contain  a 
portio"^  of  the  pure  gold  of  poetry. 

S''otland,  in  becoming  part  of  the  British  monarchy,  pre- 
served her  dignity.  Having,  during  many  generations,  cour- 
ageously withstood  the  English  arms,  she  was  now  joined  to 
her  stronijer  neijjhbour  on  the  most  honourable  terms.  She 
gave  a  King  instead  of  receiving  one.  She  retained  her  own 
constitution  and  laws.  Her  tribunals  and  parliaments  remained 
entirely  independent  of  the  tribunals  and  parliaments  which 
sate  at  Westminster.  The  administration  of  Scotland  was  in 
Scottish  hands  ;  for  no  Englishman  had  any  motive  to  emigrate 
northward,  and  to  contend  with  the  shrewdest  and  most  perti- 
nacious of  all  races  for  what  was  to  be  scraped  together  in  the 
poorest  of  all  treasuries.  Nevertheless  Scotland  by  no  means 
escaped  the  fate  ordained  for  every  country  which  is  connected, 
but  not  incorporated,  with  another  country  of  greater  resources. 
Though  in  name  an  independent  kmgdom,  she  was,  during  more 
than  a  century,  really  treated,  in  many  respects,  as  a  subject 
province. 

Ireland  was  undisguisedly  governed  as  a  dependency  won 
by  the  sword.  Her  rude  national  institutions  had  perished. 
The  Enirlish  colonists  submitted  to  the  dictation  of  the  mother 
country,  without  whose  support  they  could  not  exist,  and  in- 
demnified themselves  by  trampling  on  the  people  among  whom 
they  had  settled.  The  parliaments  which  met  at  Dublin  could 
pass  no  law  which  had  not  been  previously  approved  by  the 
English  Privy  Council.  The  authority  of  the  English  legisla- 
ture extended  over  Ireland.  The  executive  administration  was 
entrusted  to  men  taken  either  from  England  or  from  the  English 
pale,  and,  in  either  case,  regarded  as  foreigners,  and  even  as 
enemies,  by  the  Celtic  population. 

But  the  circumstance  which,  more  than  any  other,  has  made 
Ireland  to  differ  from  Scotland  remains  to  be  noticed.  Scotland 
was  Protestant.  In  no  jiart  of  Europe  had  the  movement  of 
the  popular  mind  against  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  been  so 


HKKORE    THE    UESTORATION.  •  71 

rapid  and  violent.  The  Reformers  liad  vanquished,  deposed, 
and  imprisoned  their  idolatrous  sovereign.  They  would  not 
endure  even  such  a  compromise  as  had  been  effected  in  England. 
They  had  established  the  Calvinistic  doctrine,  discipline,  and 
worship ;  and  they  made  little  distinction  between  Popery  and 
Prelacy,  between  the  Mass  and  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer. 
Unfortunately  for  Scotland,  tlie  prince  whom  she  sent  to  govern 
a  fairer  inheritance  had  been  so  much  annoyed  by  the  pertinacity 
with  which  her  theologians  had  asserted  against  him  the  privi- 
leges of  the  synod  and  the  pulpit  that  he  hated  the  ecclesiastical 
polity  to  which  she  was  fondly  attached  as  much  as  it  was  in  his 
effeminate  nature  to  hate  anything,  and  nad  no  sooner  mounted 
the  Enirlish  throne  than  he  beijan  to  show  an  intolerant  zeal 
for  the  government  and  ritual  of  the  English  Church. 

The  Irish  were  the  only  peo.')le  of  northern  Europe  who 
had  i-emained  true  to  the  old  religion.  This  is  to  be  partly  as- 
cribed to  the  circumstance  that  they  were  some  centuries  behind 
their  neighbours  in  knowledge.  But  other  causes  had  coope- 
rateil.  The  Reformation  had  been  a  national  as  well  as  a  moral 
revolt.  It  had  been,  not  only  an  insurrection  of  the  laity 
against  the  clergy,  but  also  an  insurrection  of  all  the  branches 
of  the  great  German  race  against  an  alien  domination.  It  is  a 
most  significant  circumstance  that  no  large  society  of  which  the 
tongue  is  not  Teutonic  has  ever  turned  Protestant,  and  that, 
wherever  a  lancruaije  derived  from  that  of  ancient  Rome  is 
spoken,  the  religion  of  modern  Rome  to  this  day  prevails.  The 
patriotism  of  the  Irish  had  taken  a  peculiar  direction.  The  ob- 
ject of  their  animosity  was  not  Rome,  but  England  ;  and  they 
had  especial  reason  to  abhor  those  English  sovereigns  who  had 
been  the  chiefs  of  the  great  schism,  Henry  the  Eighth  and  Eliz- 
abeth. Durinij  the  vain  stru2,<rle  which  two  generations  of  Mi- 
lesian  princes  riiaintained  against  the  Tudors,  religious  enthusi- 
asm and  national  enthusiasm  became  inseparably  blended  in  the 
minds  of  the  vanquished  race.  The  new  feud  of  Protestant  and 
Papist  inflamed  tlie  old  feud  of  Saxon  and  Celt.  The  English 
conquerors,  meanwhile,  neglected  all  legitimate  means  of  con 
version.     No  care  was  taken  to  provide  the  vanquished  natiou 


72  •  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

with  instructors  capable  of  making  themselves  understood.  No 
translation  of  the  Bible  Was  put  forth  in  the  Irish  language. 
The  government  contented  itself  wiih  setting  up  a  vast  hierai-chy 
of  Protestant  archbishops,  bishops,  and  rectors,  who  did  nothing, 
and  who,  for  doing  nothing,  were  paid  out  of  the  spoils  of  a 
Church  loved  and  revered  by  the  great  body  of  the  jieople. 

There  was  much  in  the  state  both  of  Scotland  and  of  Ireland 
which  might  well  excite  the  painful  apprehensions  of  a  farsighted 
statesman.  As  yet,  however,  there  was  the  appearance  of  tran- 
quillity. For  the  first  time  all  the  British  isles  were  peaceably 
united  under  one  sceptre.  ' 

It  should  seem  that  the  weight  of  England  among  European 
nations  ought,  from  this  epoch,  to  have  greatly  increased.  The 
territory  which  her  new  King  governed  was,  in  extent,  nearly 
double  that  which  Elizabeth  had  inherited.  His  empire  was  the 
most  complete'within  itself  and  the  most  secure  from  attack  that 
was  to  be  found  in  the  world.  The  Plantag-enets  and  Tudors 
had  been  repeatedly  under  the  necessity  of  defending  them- 
selves against  Scotland  while  they  were  engaged  in  continental 
war.  The  long  conflict  in  Ireland  had  been  a  severe  and  per- 
petual drain  on  their  resources.  Yet  even  under  such  disadvan- 
tages those  sovereigns  had  been  highly  considered  throughout 
Christendom.  It  might,  therefore,  not  unreasonably  be  expect- 
ed that  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland  combined  would  form  a 
state  second  to  none  that  then  existed. 

All  such  expectations  were  strangely  disappointed.  On  the 
day  of  the  accession  of  James  the  First  England  descended 
from  the  rank  which  she  had  hitherto  held,  and  began  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  power  hardly  of  the  second  order.  During  many 
yeats  the  great  British  monarchy,  under  four  successive  princes 
of  the  House  of  Stuart,  was  scarcely  a  more  important  member 
of  the  European  system  than  the  little  kingdom  of  Scotland  had 
previously  been.  This,  however,  is  little  to  be  regretted.  Of 
James  the  First,  as  of  John,  it  may  be  said  that,  if  his  adminis- 
tration had  been  able  and  splendid,  it  would  probably  have  been 
fatal  to  our  country,  and  that  we  owe  more  to  his  weakness  and 
■weanness  than  to  the  wisdom  and  courage  of  much  better  sever* 


BKFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  73 

eiffiis.  He  came  to  the  throne  at  a  critical  moment.  The  time 
was  fast  approaching  when  either  the  King  must  become  abso- 
hite,  or  the  Parliament  must  control  the  whole  executive  ad- 
ministration. Had  James  been,  like  Henry  the  Fourth,  like 
Maurice  of  Nassau,  or  like  Gustavus  Adolphus,  a  valiant,  ac- 
tive, and  politic  ruler,  had  he  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
Protestants  of  Europe,  had  he  gained  great  victories  over  Tilly 
and  Spinola,  had  he  adorned  Westminster  with  the  spoils  of  Ba- 
varian monasteries  and  Flemish  cathedrals,  had  he  hung  Austrian 
and  Castilian  banners  in  Saint  Paul's,  and  had  he  found  himself, 
after  great  achievements,  at  the  head  of  fifty  thousand  troops, 
brave,  well  disciplined,  and  devotedly  attached  to  his  person, 
the  English  Parliament  would  soon  have  been  nothing  more 
than  a  name.  Happily  he  was  not  a  man  to  play  such  a  part. 
He  began  his  administration  by  putting  an  end  to  the  war  which 
had  raged  during  many  years  between  England  and  Spain  ;  and 
from  that  time  he  shunned  hostilities  with  a  caution  which  was 
proof  against  the  insults  of  his  neighbours  and  the  clamours  of  his 
subjects.  Not  till  the  last  year  of  his  life  could  the  influence  of 
his  son,  his  favourite,  his  Parliament,  and  his  people  combined, 
induce  him  to  strike  one  feeble  blow  in  defence  of  his  family  and 
of  his  religion.  It  was  well  for  those  whom  he  governed  that 
he  in  this  matter  disregarded  their  wishes.  The  effect  of  his  pa- 
cific policy  was  that,  in  his  time,  no  regular  troops  were  needed, 
and  that,  while  France,  Spain,  Italy,  Belgium,  and  Germany 
swarmed  with  mercenary  soldiers,  the  defence  of  our  island  was 
still  confided  to  the  militia. 

As  the  King  had  no  standing  army,  and  did  not  even  at- 
tempt to  form  one,  it  would  have  been  wise  in  him  to  avoid  any 
conflict  with  his  people.  But  such  was  his  indiscretion  that, 
while  he  altogether  neglected  the  means  which  alone  could  make 
him  really  absolute,  he  constantly  put  forward,  in  the  most 
offensive  form,  claims  of  which  none  of  his  predecessors  had 
ever  dreamed.  It  was  at  this  time  that  those  strange  theories 
which  Filmer  afterwards  formed  into  a  system,  and  which  be- 
came the  badge  of  the  most  violent  class  of  Tories  and  high 
churchmen,  first  emerged    into    notice.     It  was   gravely  main- 


74  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

tained  that  the  Supreme  Being  regarded  hereditary  monarchy,  as 
opposed  to  other  forms  of  government,  with  peculiar  favour; 
that  the  rule  of  succession  in  order  of  primogeniture  was  a 
divine  institution,  anterior  to  the  Christian,  and  even  to  the 
Mosaic  dispensation  ;  that  no  human  power,  not  even  that  of 
the  whole  legislature,  no  length  of  adverse  possession,  though  it 
extended  to  ten  centuries,  could  deprive  a  legitimate  prince  of 
his  rights  ;  that  the  authority  of  such  a  prince  was  necessarily 
always  despotic;  that  the  laws,  by  which,  in  England  and  in 
other  countries,  the  prerogative  was  limited,  were  to  be  re- 
garded merely  as  concessions  which  the  sovereign  had  freely 
made  and  might  at  his  j^leasure  resume  ;  and  that  any  treaty 
which  a  king  might  conclude  with  his  people  was  merely  a 
declaration  of  his  present  intentions,  and  not  a  contract  of  which 
the  performance  could  be  demanded.  It  is  evident  that  this 
theory,  though  in-tended  to  strengthen  the  foundations  of 
government,  altogether  unsettles  them.  Does  the  divine  and 
immutable  law  of  primogeniture  admit  females,  or  exclude 
them  ?  On  either  supposition  half  the  sovereigns  of  Europe 
must  be  usurpers,  reignmg  in  defiance  of  the  law  of  God,  and 
liable  to  be  dispossessed  by  the  rightful  heirs.  The  doctrine 
that  kingly  government  is  peculiarly  favoured  by  Heaven 
receives  no  countenance  from  the  Old  Testament ;  for  in  the 
Old  Testament  we  read  that  the  chosen  people  were  blamed 
and  punished  for  desiring  a  king,  and  that  they  were  afterwards 
commanded  to  withdraw  their  allegiance  from  him.  Their 
whole  history,  far  from  countenancing  the  notion  that  succession 
in  order  of  primogeniture  is  of  divine  institution,  would  rather 
seem  to  indicate  that  younger  brothers  are  under  the  especial 
protection  of  heaven.  Isaac  was  not  the  eldest  son  of  Abraham, 
nor  Jacob  of  Isaac,  nor  Judah  of  Jacob,  nor  David  of  Jesse, 
nor  Solomon  of  David  Nor  does  the  system  of  Filmer  receive 
any  countenance  from  those  passages  of  the  New  Testament 
which  describe  government  as  an  ordinance  of  God :  for  the 
government  under  which  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament 
lived  was  not  a  hereditary  monarchy.  The  Roman  Emperors 
R'ere  repabllean  magistrates^  named  by  fche  senate*    None  oi 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  75 

them   pretended  to   rule  by  right  of  birth  ;  aud,  in   fact,  both 
Tiberius,  to  whom  Christ   commanded   that   tribute   should  be 
given,   and  Nero,  whom  Paul  directed  the  Romans  to  obey, 
were,    according    to    the    patriarchal    theory    of    government, 
usurpers.     In  the  middle  ages  the  doctrine  of  indefeasible  hered- 
itary right  would  have   been  regarded  as  heretical :   for  it   was 
altogether  incompatible  with  the  high  pretensions  of  the  Church 
of  Rome.     It  was  a  doctrine  unknown  to  the  founders  of  the 
Church  of  England.  The  Homily  on  Wilful  Rebellion  had  strong- 
ly, and  indeed  too  strongly,  inculcated  submission  to  constituted 
authority,  but  had  made   no   distinction  between  hereditary  and 
elective  monarchies,  or  between  monarchies  and  republics.  Indeed 
most  of  the  predecessors  of  James  would,  from  personal  motives, 
have   regarded  the  patriarchal  theory  of  government  with  aver- 
sion.    William  Rufus,  Henry  the  First,  Stephen,  John,  Henry 
the   Fourth,  Henry  the   Fifth,  Henry  the   Sixth,  Richard   the 
Third,  and  Henry  the  Seventh,  had  all  reigned  in  defiance  of 
the    strict    rule    of"  descent.     A    grave    doubt   hung  over    the 
legitimacy  both  of  Mary  and  of   Elizabeth.       It  was  impossible 
that  both  Catharine  of  Aragon  and  Anne  Boleyn  could  have 
been  lawfully  married  to  Henry  the  Eighth  ;  and   the  highest 
authority  in  the  realm  had  pronounced  tliat  neither  was  so.    The 
Tudors,  far  from  considering  the  law  of  succession  as  a  divine 
and  unchangeable   institution,  were  constantly  tampering  with 
it.     Henry  the   Eighth   obtained  an   act  of  parliament,  giving 
him  power  to  leave  the  crown  by  will,  and  actually  made  a  will 
to  the  prejudice  of  the  royal  family  of  Scotland.     Edward  the 
Sixth,  unauthorised  by  Parliament,  assumed  a  similar  power, 
with    the   full    approbation    of  the    most    eminent   Reformers. 
Elizabeth,  conscious  that   her  own  title  was  open  to   grave  ob- 
jection, and  unwilling  to  admit  even  a  reversionary  right  in  her 
rival  and  enemy  the  Queen  of  Scots,  induced  the  Parliament  to 
pass  a  law,  enacting  that  whoever  should  deny  the  competency 
of  the  reigning  sovereign,  with  the  assent  of  the  Estates  of  the 
realm,  to  alter  the  succession,  should   suffer  death  as  a  traitor. 
But  the  situation  of  James  was   widely  different   from  that  of 
Elizabeth.     Far  inferior  to  her  in  abilities  and  in  popularity, 


76  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

regarded  by  the  English  as  an  alien,  and  excluded  from  the 
throne  by  the  testament  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  tlie  King  of  Scots 
was  ye^  the  undoubted  heir  of  William  the  Conqueror  and  of 
Egbert.  He  had,  therefore,  au  'obvious  interest  in  inculcating 
the  superstitious  notion  that  birth  confers  rights  anterior  to  law, 
and  unalterable  by  law.  It  was  a  notion,  moreover,  well  suited 
to  his  intellect  and  temper.  It  soon  found  many  advocates 
among  those  who  aspired  to  his  favour,  and  made  rapid  pro- 
gress among  the  clergy  of  the  Established  Church. 

Thus,  at  the  very  moment  at  which  a  republican  spirit  began 
to  manifest  itself  strongly  in  the  Parliament  and  in  the  country, 
the  claims  of  the  monarch  took  a  monstrous  form  which  would 
have  disgusted  the  proudest  and  most  arbitrary  of  those  who 
had  preceded  him  on  the  throne. 

James  was  always  boasting  of  his  skill  in  what  he  called 
kingcraft ;  and  yet  it  is  hardly  possible  even  to  imagine  a  course 
more  directly  opposed  to  all  the  rules  of  kingcraft,  than  that 
which  he  followed.  The  policy  of  wise  rulers  has  always  been 
to  disguise  strong  acts  under  poi^ular  forms.  It  was  thus  that 
Augustus  and  Napoleon  established  absolute  monarchies,  while 
the  public  regarded  them  merely  as  eminent  citizens  invested 
with  temporary  magistracies.  The  policy  of  James  was  the  di- 
rect reverse  of  theirs.  He  enraged  and  alarmed  his  Parliament 
by  constantly  telling  them  that  they  held  their  privileges  merely 
during  his  pleasure,  and  that  they  had  no  more  business  to 
inquire  what  he  might  lawfully  do  than  what  the  Deity  might 
lawfully  do.  Yet  he  quailed  before  them,  abandoned  minister 
after  minister  to  their  vengeance,  and  suffered  them  to  tease 
him  into  acts  directly  opposed  to  his  strongest  inclinations. 
Thus  the  indignation  excited  by  his  claims  and  the  scorn 
excited  by  his  concessions  went  on  growing  together.  By  his 
fondness  for  worthless  minions,  and  by  the  sanction  which  he 
gave  to  their  tyranny  and  rajiacity,  he  kept  discontent  constantly 
alive.  His  cowardice,  his  childishness,  his  jiedantry,  his  ungainly 
person,  his  provincial  accent,  made  him  an  object  of  derision. 
Even  in  his  virtues  and  accomplishments  there  was  something 
eminently  unkingly.     Throughout  the  whole  course  of  his  reign, 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  (1 

all  the  venerable  associations  by  which  the  throne  had  long  been 
fenced  were  gradually  losing  their  strength.  During  two  hun- 
dred years  all  the  sovereigns  who  had  ruled  England,  with  the 
exception  of  Henry  the  Sixth,  had  been  strong-minded,  highspir- 
ited,  courageous,  and  of  princely  bearing.  Almost  all  had  pos- 
sessed abilities  above  the  ordinary  level.  It  was  no  light  thing 
that  on  the  very  eve  of  the  decisive  struggle  between  our  Kings 
and  their  Parliaments,  royalty  should  be  exhibited  to  the  world 
stammering,  slobbering,  shedding  unmanly  tears,  trembling  at  a 
drawn  sword,  and  talking  in  the  style  alternately  of  a  buffoon 
and  of  a  pedagogue. 

In  the  meantime  the  religious  dissensions,  by  which,  from 
the  days  of  Edward  the  Sixth,  the  Protestant  body  had  been 
distracted,  had  become  more  formidable  than  ever.  The  inter- 
val which  had  separated  the  first  generation  of  Puritans  from 
Cranmer  and  Jewel  was  small  indeed  when  compared  with  the 
interval  which  separated  the  third  generation  of  Puritans  from 
Laud  and  Hammond.  While  the  recollection  of  Mary's  cruelties 
was  still  fresh,  while  the  powers  of  the  Roman  Catholic  party 
still  inspired  apprehension,  while  Spain  still  retained  ascendency 
and  aspired  to  universal  dominion,  all  the  reformed  sects  knew 
that  they  had  a  strong  common  interest  and  a  deadly  common 
enemy.  The  animosity  which  they  felt  towards  each  other  was 
languid  when  compared  with  the  animosity  which  they  all  felt  to- 
wards Rome.  Conformists  and  Nonconformists  had  heartily  joined 
in  enacting  penal  laws  of  extreme  severity  against  the  Papists. 
But  when  more  than  half  a  century  of  undisturbed  possession 
had  given  confidence  U  the  Established  Church,  when  nine 
tenths  of  the  nation  had  become  heartily  Protestant,  when  Eng- 
land was  at  peace  with  all  the  world,  when  there  was  no  danger 
that  Popery  would  be  forced  by  foreign  arms  on  the  nation, 
when  the  last  confessors  who  had  stood  before  Bonner  had 
passed  away,  a  change  took  place  in  the  feeling  of  the  Angli- 
can clergy.  Their  hostility  to  the  Roman  Catholic  doctrine  and 
discipline  was  considerably  mitigated.  Their  dislike  of  the  Puri- 
tans, on  the  other  hand,  increased  daily.  The  controversies 
which  had  from  the  beginning  divided  the  Protestant  party  took 


78  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

such  a  form  as  made  reconciliation  hopeless  ;  and  new  controver- 
sies of  still  greater  importance  were  added  to  the  old  subjects  of 
dispute. 

The  founders  of  the  Anglican  Church  had  retained  episco- 
pacy as  an  ancient,  a  decent,  and  a  convenient  ecclesiastical 
polity,  but  had  not  declared  that,  form  of  church  government 
to  be  of  divine  institution.  We  have  already  seen  how  low  an 
estimate  Craumer  had  formed  of  the  office  of  a  Bishop.  In  tha 
reign  of  Elizabeth,  Jewel,  Cooper,  Whitgift,  and  other  eminent 
doctors  defended  prelacy,  as  innocent,  as  useful,  as  what  the 
state  might  lawfully  establish,  as  what,  when  established  by  the 
state,  was  entitled  to  the  respect  of  every  citizen.  But  they 
never  denied  that  a  Christian  community  without  a  Bishop 
might  be  a  pure  Church.*  On  the  contrary,  they  regarded  the 
Protestants  of  the  Continent  as  of  the  same  household  of  faith 
with  themselves.  Englishmen  in  England  were  indeed  bound 
to  acknowledge  the  authority  of  the  Bishop,  as  they  were  bound 
to  acknowledge  the  authority  of  the  Sheriff  and  of  the  Coroner  * 
but  the  obligation  was  purely  local.  An  English  churchman . 
nay  even  an  English  prelate,  if  he  went  to  Holland,  conformed 
without  scruple  to  the  established  religion  of  Holland.  Abroad 
the  ambassadors  of  Elizabeth  and  James  went  in  sta^e  to  the^ 
very  worship  which  Elizabeth  and  James  persecuted  it  home,, 

*  On  thia  subject,  Bishop  Cooper's  language  is  remarkably  cle-" I  and  strong. 
He  maintains,  in  bis  Answer  to  Martin  Marprelate,  printed  in  ISSt,  tliat  no  form 
of  cbureh  government  is  divinely  ordained  ;  that  Protestant  communities,  in 
establishing  different  forms,  have  only  made  a'  legitimate  use  ol  their  Christian 
liberty  ;  and  that  episcopacy  is  peculiarly  suited  to  England,  be-^ause  the  English 
constitution  is  monarchical.  "All  those  Churches,"  says  the  bishop,  "  in  which 
the  Gospel),  in  these  dales,  after  great  darknesse,  was  firs*  renewed,  and  th(* 
learned  men  whom  God  sent  to  instruct  them,  I  doul)t  not  bu*  have  been  directed 
by  the  Spirite  of  God  to  retaine  this  liberty,  that,  in  exter  lal  government  and 
other  outward  orders,  they  might  choose  such  as  they  thoi'^ht  in  wisedome  and 
godlinesRO  to  be  most  oonvenieTit  for  the  state  of  their  cov  ntrey  and  disposition 
of  their  jr  ople.  Why  then  should  this  liberty  that  otheT  countreys  h.ive  used 
under  anie  colour  be  wrested  from  us?  I  think  it  therefore  great  presumption 
and  boldnesse  that  some  of  our  nation,  and  those,  whatever  they  may  think  of 
themselves,  not  of  the  greatest  wisedome  and  skill,  should  take  ujion  them  to 
controUc  the  whole  realnie,  and  to  binde  botn  prince  and  people  in  respect  of 
conscience  to  alter  the  present  stato,  and  tie  themselves  to  a  certain  platforme 
devised  by  some  of  our  iieighboui  s.  which,  in  the  judgment  of  many  wise  and 
godly  persons,  Is  most  untit  for  the  state  of  a  Kingdome." 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  79 

and  carefully  abstained  from  decorating  their  private  chapels 
after  the  Anglican  fashion,  ]e;t  scandal  should  be  given  to 
weaker  brethren.  An  instrument  is  still  extant  by  which  the 
Primate  of  all  England,  in  the  year  1582,  authorised  a  Scotch 
minister,  ordained,  accordinij  to  the  laudable  forms  of  the  Scotch 
Church,  by  the  Synod  of  East  Lothian,  to  preach  and  administer 
the  sacraments  in  any  part  of  the  province  of  Canterbury.*  In 
the  year  1603,  the  Convocation  solemnly  recognised  the  Church 
of  Scotland,  a  Church  in  which  episcopal  control  and  episcopal 
ordination  were  then  unknown,  as  a  branch  of  the  Holy  Catholic 
Church  of  Christ. t  It  was  even  held  that  Presbyterian  minis- 
ters were  entitled  to  place  and  voice  in  oecumenical  councils. 
When  the  States  General  of  the  United  Provinces  convoked  at 
Dort  a  synod  of  doctors  not  episcopally  ordained,  an  English 
Bishop  and  an  English  Dean,  commissioned  by  the  head  of  the 
English  Church,  sate  with  those  doctors,  preached  to  them,  and 
voted  with  them  on  \he  gravest  questions  of  theology,  t  Nay, 
many  English  benefices  were  held  by  divines  who  had  been 
admitted  to  the  ministry  in  the  Calvinistic  form  used  on  the 
Continent ;  nor  was  reordination  by  a  Bishop  in  such  cases  then 
thought  necessary,  or  even  lawful.  § 

But  a  new  race  of  divines  was  already  rising  in  the  Church 
of  England.  In  their  view  the  episcopal  office  was  essential  to 
the  welfare  of  a  Christian  society  and  to  the  efficacy  of  the 
most  solemn  ordinances  of  religion.  To  that  office  belonged 
certain  high  and  sacred  privileges,  which  no  human  power  could 

*  Strype's  Life  of  Grindal,  Appendix  to  Book  II.  No.  xvii. 

t  Canon  55,  of  1603. 

+  Joseph  Hall,  then  dean  of  "Worcester,  and  afterwards  bishop  of  Norwich, 
■was  one  of  the  commissioners.  In  his  life  of  himself,  he  says:  "  My  unworthi- 
iiess  was  named  for  one  of  the  assistants  of  that  honourable,  grave,  and  reverend 
meeting."    To  high  churchmen  this  humility  will  seem  not  a  little  out  of  place. 

§  It  was  by  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  passed  after  the  Restoration,  that  persons 
not  episcopally  ordained  were,  for  the  first  time,  made  incapable  of  holding 
benetices.  No  man  was  more  zealous  for  this  law  than  Clai-endon.  Yet  Jie  says  : 
"  This  was  new  ;  for  there  hnd  been  many,  and  at  present  there  were  some,  who 
possessed  benefices  with  cure  of  souls  and  other  ecclesiastical  promotions,  who 
had  never  received  orders  but  in  France  or  Holland  ;  and  these  men  must  now 
receive  new  ordination,  which  had  been  always  held  unlawful  in  theChurch,  or  by 
this  act  of  parliament  must  be  deprived  of  their  livelihood  wbicli  tlie^  eiijoyed 
In  tbo  wost  flourlfiblug  and  peficeable  time  of  the  CliurcU," 


80  HISTOKY    OF    KNGLAND. 

give  or  take  away.  A  church  might  as  well  be  without  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  or  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation,  as 
without  the  apostolical  orders  ;  and  the  Church  of  Rome,  which, 
in  the  midst  of  all  her  corruptions,  had  retained  the  apostolical 
orders,  was  nearer  to  primitive  purity  than  tliose  reformed 
societies  which  had  rashly  set  up,  in  opposition  to  the  divine 
model,  a  system  invented  by  men. 

In  the  days  of  Edward  the  Sixth  and  of  Elizabeth,  the 
defenders  of  the  Anglican  ritual  had  generally  contented  them- 
selves with  saying  that  it  might  be  used  without  sin,  and  that, 
thei'efore,  none  but  a  perverse  and  iindutiful  subject  would 
refuse  to  use  it  when  enjoined  to  do  so  by  the  magistrate.  Now, 
however,  that  rising  party  which  claimed  for  the  polity  of  the 
Church  a  celestial  origin  began  to  ascribe  to  her  services  a  new 
dignity  and  importance.  It  was  hinted  that,  if  the  established 
worship  had  any  fault,  that  fault  was  extreme  simplicity,  and 
that  the  Reformers  had,  in  the  heat  of  their  quarrel  with  Rome, 
abolished  many  ancient  ceremonies  which  might  with  advantage 
have  been  retained.  Days  and  places  were  again  held  in 
mysterious  veneration.  Some  practices  which  had  long  been 
disused,  and  which  were  commonly  regarded  as  superstitious 
mummeries,  were  revived.  Paintings  and  carvings,  which  had 
escaped  the  fury  of  the  first  generation  of  Protestants,  became 
the  objects  of  a  respect  such  as  to  many  seemed  idolatrous. 

No  part  of  the  system  of  the  old  Church  had  been  more 
detested  by  the  Reformers  than  the  honour  paid  to  celibacy. 
They  held  that  the  doctrine  of  Rome  on  this  subject  had  been 
prophetically  condemned  by  the  apostle  Paul,  as  a  doctrine  of 
devils  ;  and  they  dwelt  much  on  the  crimes  and  scandals  which 
seemed  to  prove  the  justice  of  this  awful  denunciation.  Luther 
had  evinced  his  own  opinion  in  the  clearest  manner,  by  espousing 
a  nun.  Some  of  the  most  illustrious  bishops  and  priests  who 
had  died  by  fire  during  the  reign  of  Mary  had  left  wives  and 
children.  Now,  however,  it  began  to  be  rumoured  that  the  old 
monastic  spirit  had  reappeared  in  the  Churqh  of  England  ;  that 
there  was  in  high  quarters  a  prejudice  against  married  priests ; 
that  even  laymen,  who  called  themselves  Protestants,  had  made 


BKFOUE    THE    KESTORATION.  81 

resolutions  of  celibacy  which  almost  amounted  to  vows ;  nay, 
that  a  minister  of  the  established  religion  had  set  up  a  nunnery, 
in  which  the  psalms  were  chaunted  at  midnight,  by  a  company 
of  virgins  dedicated  to  God.* 

Nor   was  'this   all.     A  class  of  questions,  as   to  which   the 

founders  of  the    Anglican  Church   and  the   first  generation    of 

Puritans    had    differed    little    or    not   at    all,  began  to   furnish 

matter  for  fierce  disputes.     The  controversies  which  had  divided 

the  Protestant  body  in  its  infancy  had  related  almost  exclusively 

to  Church  government  and  to  ceremonies.     There  had  been  no 

serious  quarrel  between    the   contending   parties   on   points  of 

metaphysical  theology.     The  doctrines  held  by  the  chiefs  of  the 

hierarchy  touching  original  sin,  faith,  grace,  predestination,  and  . 

election,   were   those   which    are    popularly    called    Calvinistic. 

Towards  the  close   of  Elizabeth's  reign   her  favourite  prelate. 

Archbishop  Whitgift,  drew  up,  in  concert  with   the  Bishop   of 

London  and  other  theologians,  the  celebrated  instrument  known 

by  the  name  of   the  Lambeth  Articles.     In  that  instrument  the 

most  startlhig  of  the  Calvinistic  doctrines  are  affirmed  with  a 

distinctness    which    would    shock   many    who,  in    our    age,  are 

reputed  Calvinists.     One  clergyman,  who  took  the  opposite  side, 

and  spoke  harshly  of  Calvin,  was  arraigned  for  his  presumption 

by  the  University  of   Cambridge,  and    escaped  punishment  only 

by   expressing  his  firm   belief  in  the   tenets  of  reprobation  and 

final  perseverance,  and  his  sorrow  for  the  offence  which  he  had 

given  to  pious  men  by  reflecting  on   the  great  French  reformer. 

The  school  of  divinity  of  which  Hooker  was  the  chief  occupies 

a  middle  place  between  the  school  of  Cranmer  and  the  school  of 

Laud ;  and  Hooker  has,  in   modern  times,  been  claimed  by  the 

Arminians  as  an  ally.     Yet  Hooker  pronounced  Calvin  to  have 

been  a  man  superior  in  wisdom  to  any  other  divine  that  France 

had  produced,  a  man  to  whom  thousands  were  indebted  for  the 

knowledge  of  divine  truth,  but  who  was  himself  indebted  to  God 

alone.     When  the  Arminian  controversy  arose  in  Holland,  the 

*  reckard's  Life  of  Ferrar  ;  The  Arminian  Nunnery,  or  a  Brief  Description 
of  the  late  erected  monastical  Place  called  the  Arminian  Nunnery,  at  Little 
Gidding  in  Huntingdonshire,  1641. 

6 


82  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

English  government -and  the  English  Church  lent  strong  support 
to  the  Calvinistic  party  ;  nor  is  the  English  name  altogether 
free  from  the  stain  which  has  been  left  on  that  party  by  the 
imprisonment  of  Grotius  and  the  judicial  murder  of  Barneveldt. 

But,  even  before  the  meeting  of  the  Dutch  synod,  that  part 
of  the  Anglican  clergy  which  was  peculiarly  hostile  to  the  Cal- 
vinistic Church  government  and  to  the  Calvinistic  worship  had 
begun  to  regard  with  dislike  the  Calvinistic  metaphysics  ;  and 
this  feeling  was  very  naturally  strengthened  by  the  gross  injus- 
tice, insolence,  and  cruelty  of  the  party  which  was  prevalent  at 
Dort.  The  Anninian  doctrine,  a  doctrine  less  austerely  logical 
than  that  of  the  early  Reformers,  but  more  agreeable  to  the 
popular  notions  of  the  divine  justice  and  benevolence,  spread 
fast  and  wide.  The  infection  soon  reached  the  court.  Opin- 
ions which  at  the  time  of  the  accession  of  James,  no  clergyman 
could  have  avowed  without  imminent  risk  of  being  strij^ped  of 
his  gown,  were  now  the  best  title  to  preferment.  A  divine  of 
that  age,  who  was  asked  by  a  simple  country  gentleman  what 
the  Arminians  lield,  answered,  with  as  much  truth  as  wit,  that 
they  held  all  the  best  bishoprics  and  deaneries  in  England. 

While  the  majority  of  the  Anglican  clergy  quitted,  in  one 
direction,  the  position  which  they  had  originally  occupied,  the 
majority  of  the  Puritan  body  departed,  in  a  direction  diametri- 
cally opposite,  from  the  principles  and  practices  of  their  fathers. 
The  persecution  which  the  separatists  had  undergone  had  been 
severe  enough  to  irritate,  but  not  severe  enough  to  destroy. 
They  had  been,  not  tamed  into  submission,  but  baited  into 
savageness  and  stubborness.  After  the  fashion  of  oppressed 
sects,  they  mistook  their  own  vindictive  feelings  for  emotions  of 
piety,  encouraged  in  themselves  by  reading  and  meditation  a 
disposition  to  brood  over  their  wi'ongs,  and,  when  they  had 
worked  themselves  up  into  hating  their  enemies,  imagined  that 
they  were  only  hating  the  enemies  of  heaven.  In  the  New 
Testament  there  was  little  indeed  which,  even  wh«n  perverted 
by  the  most  disingenuous  exposition,  could  seem  to  countenance 
the  indulgence  of  malevolent  passions.  But  the  Old  Testament 
coataJned  the  history  of  a  race  selected  by  God  to  be  witnesses 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  83 

of  his  unity  and  ministers  of  his  vengeance,  and  specially  com« 
manded  by  him  to  do  many  things  which,  if  done  without  his 
special  command,  would  have  been  atrocious  crimes.  In  such  a 
history  it  was  not  difficult  for  fierce  and  gloomy  spirits  to  find 
much  that  might  be  distorted  to  suit  their  wishes.  The  extreme 
Puritans  therefore  began  to  feel  for  the  Old  Testament  a  pref- 
erence, which,  perhaps,  they  did  not  distinctly  avow  even  to 
themselves;  but  which  showed  itself  in  all  their  sentiments  and 
habits.  They  paid  to  the  Hebrew  language  a  respect  which  they 
refused  to  that  tongue  in  which  the  discourses  of  Jesus  and  the 
epistles  of  Paul  have  come  down  to  us.  They  baptized  their 
children  by  the  names,  not  of  Christian  saints,  but  of  Hebrew 
patriarchs  and  warriors.  In  defiance  of  the  express  and  reit- 
erated declarations  of  Luther  and  Calvin,  they  turned  the  weekly 
festival  by  which  the  Church  had,  from  the  prim'tive  times, 
commemorated  the  resurrection  of  her  Lord,  into  a  Jewish  Sab- 
bath. They  sought  for  principles  of  jurisprudence  in  the 
Mosaic  law,  and  for  precedents  to  guide  their  ordinary  conduct, 
in  the  books  of  Judges  and  Kings.  Their  thoughts  and  dis- 
course ran  much  on  acts  which  were  assuredly  not  recorded  as 
examples  for  our  imitation.  The  prophet  who  hewed  in  pieces 
a  captive  king,  the  rebel  general  who  gave  the  blood  of  a  queen 
to  the  dogs,  the  matron  who,  in  defiance  of  plighted  faith,  and 
of  the  laws  of  eastern  hospitality,  drove  the  nail  into  the  brain 
of  the  fugitive  ally  who  had  just  fed  at  her  board,  and  who  was 
sleeping  under  the  shadow  of  her  tent,  were  proposed  as  models 
to  Christians  suffering  under  the  tyranny  of  princes  and  pre- 
lates. Morals  and  manners  were  subjected  to  a  code  resembling 
that  of  the  synagogue,  when  the  synagogue  was  in  its  worst 
state.  The  dress,  the  deportment,  tlie  language,  the  studies,  the 
amusements  of  the  rigid  sect  were  regulated  on  principles  not 
unlike  those  of  the  Pharisees  who,  proud  of  their  washed  hands 
and  broad  phylacteries,  taunted  the  Redeemer  as  a  sabbath- 
breaker  and  a  wiuebibber  It  was  a  sin  to  han<j  ijarlands  on  a 
Maypole,  to  drink  a  friend's  health,  to  fly  a  hawk,  to  hunt  a 
stag,  to  play  at  chess,  to  wear  love-locks,  to  put  starch  into  a 
ruff,  to  touch   the   virginals,  to   read  the  Fairy  Queen.     Rules 


S4  HISTORY  OP   ENGLAND. 

such   as  these,  rules  which  would  have  appeared  insupportable 
to  the  free  and  joyous  spirit  of  Luther,  and  contemptible  to  the 
serene  and  philosophical   intellect  of  Zwingle,  threw  over  all 
life  a  more  than  monastic  gloom.     The  learning  and  eloquence 
by  which  the  great  Reformei's  had  been  eminently  distinguished, 
and  to  which  they  had  been,  in  no  small  measure,  indebted  for 
their  success,  were   regarded  by  the  new  school  of  Protestants 
with  suspicion,  if  not  with  aversion.     Some  precisians  had  scru- 
ples about  teaching  the  Latin  grammar,  because  the  names  of 
Mars,  Bacchus,  and  Apollo   occurred  iu  it.     The  fine  arts  were 
all  but  proscribed.     The  solemn  peal  of  the  organ  was   super- 
stitious.    The  light  music  of  Ben   Jonsou's  masques  was  disso- 
lute.    Half  the  line  paintings  in  England  were  idolatrous,  and 
the  other  half  indecent.     The   extreme  Puritan    was   at  once 
known  from  other  men  by  his  gait,  his  garb,  his  lank  hair,  the 
Bour  solemnity  of  his  face,  the  upturned  white  of  his  eyes,  the 
nasal  twang  with  which  he  spoke,  and  above  all,  by  his  peculiar 
dialect.       He  employed,   on   every    occasion,  the  imagery  and 
style   of  Scripture.       Hebraisms   violently  introduced  into   the 
English  language,  and  metaphors   borrowed  from   the   boldest 
lyric  poetry  of  a  remote  age   and  country,  and  applied  to  the 
common  concerns  of  English  life,  were  the  most  striking  pecu- 
liarities of  this    cant,  which  moved,  not  without  cause,  the  de- 
rision both  of  Prelatists  and  libertines. 

Thus  the  political  and  religious  schism  which  had  originated 
in  the  sixteenth  century  was,  during  the  first  quarter  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  constantly  widening.  Theories  tending  to  Turk- 
ish despotism  wei^e  in  fashion  at  Whitehall.  Theories  tending 
to  republicanism  were  in  favour  with  a  large  portion  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  The  violent  Prelatists  who  were,  to  a  man, 
zealous  for  prerogative,  and  the  violent  Puritans  who  were,  to 
a  man,  zealous  for  the  privileges  of  Parliament,  regarded  each 
other  with  animosity  more  intense  than  that  which,  in  the  pre- 
ceding generation,  had  existed  between  Catholics  and  Protes- 
tants. 

While  the  minds  of  men  were  in  this  state,  the  country,  after 
a  peace  of  many  years,  at  length  engaged  in  a  war  which  re- 


BEI^OHET  THE   RESTOKATIOK.  85 

quired  strenuous  exertions.  This  war  hastened  the  approach  of 
the  great  constitutional  ciisis.  It  was  necessary  that  the  King 
should  have  a  large  military  force.  He  could  not  have  such  a 
force  without  money.  He  could  not  legally  raise  money  with- 
out the  consent  of  Parliament.  It  followed,  therefore,  that  h-* 
either  must  administer  the  government  "in  conformity  with  the 
sense  of  tlie  House  of  Commons,  or  uuist  venture  on  such  a  vio 
lation  of  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  land  as  had  been  unknown 
during  several  centuries.  The  Plantagenets  and  the  Tudors 
had,  it  is  true,  occasionally  supplied  a  deficiency  in  their  revenue 
by  a  benevolence  or  a  forced  loan :  but  these  expedients  were 
always  of  a  temporary  nature.  To  meet  the  regular  charge  of 
a  long  war  by  regular  taxation,  imposed  without  the  consent  of 
the  Estates  of  the  realm,  was  a  course  which  Henry  the  Eighth 
himself  would  not  have  dared  to  take.  It  seemed,  therefore,  that 
the  decisive  hour  was  approaching,  and  that  tl^^^  English  Parlia- 
ment would  soon  either  share  the  fate  of  the  senates  of  the 
Continent,  or  obtain  supreme  ascendency  in  the  state. 

Just  at  this  conjuncture  James  died.  Charles  the  First  suc- 
ceeded to  the  throne.  He  had  received  from  nature  a  far  better 
understaudino;,  a  far  stronger  will,  and  a  far  keener  and  firmer 
temper  than  his  father's.  He  had  inherited  his  father's  political 
theories,  and  was  much  more  disposed  than  his  father  to  carry 
them  into  practice.  He  was,  like  his  father,  a  zealous  Episco- 
palian. He  was,  moreover,  what  his  father  had  never  been, 
a  zealous  Arminian,  and,  though  no  Papist,  liked  a  Papist  much 
better  than  a  Puritan.  It  would  be  unjust  to  deny  that  Charles 
had  some  of  the  qualities  of  a  good,  and  even  of  a  great  prince. 
He  wrote  and  spoke,  not,  like  his  father,  with  the  exactness  of 
a  professor,  but  after  the  fashion  of  intelligent  and  well  educa- 
ted gentlemen.  His  taste  in  literature  and  art  was  excellent, 
his  manner  dignified,  though  not  gracious,  his  domestic  life  with- 
out blemish.  Faithlessness  was  the  chief  cause  of  his  disasters, 
and  is  the  chief  stain  on  his  memory.  He  was,  in  truth,  im- 
pelled by  an  incurable  propensity  to  dark  and  crooked  ways.  It 
may  seem  strange  that  his  conscience,  which,  on  occasions  of 
little   moment    was   suffisiently   sensitive,  should   never   have 


86  HISTORY    OF    ENGIxA-ND. 

reproached  him  with  this  great  vice.  But  there  is  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  he  was  perfidious,  not  only  from  constitution  and  from 
habit,  but  also  on  principle.  He  seems  to  have  learned  from  the 
theologians  wliom  he  most  esteemed  that  between  him  and  his 
subjects  there  could  be  nothing  of  the  nature  of  mutual  contract; 
that  he  could  not,  even  if  he  would,  divest  himself  of  his  despotic 
autliority  ,  and  that,  in  every  promise  which  he  made,  there 
was  an  implied  reservation  that  such  promise  might  be  broken 
in  case  of  necessity,  and  that  of  the  necessity  he  was  the  sole 
judge. 

And  now  besfan  that  hazardous  game  on  which  were  staked 
the  destinies  of  the  English  people.  It  was  played  on  the  side 
of  the  House  of  Commons  with  keenness,  but  with  admirable 
dexterity,  coolness,  and  perseverance.  Great  statesmen  who 
looked  far  behind  them  and  far  before  them  were  at  the  head  of 
that  assembly.  They  were  resolved  to  place  the  King  in  such 
a  situation  that  he  must  either  conduct  the  administration  in  con- 
formity with  the  wishes  of  his  Parliament,  or  make  outrageous 
attacks  on  the  most  sacred  principles  of  the  constitution.  They 
accordingly  doled  out  supplies  to  him  very  sparingly.  He  found 
that  he  must  govern  either  in  harmony  with  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, or  in  defiance  of  all  law.  His  choice  was  soon  made. 
He  dissolved  liis  first  Parliament,  and  levied  taxes  by  his  own 
authority.  He  convoked  a  second  Parliament,  and  found  it 
more  intractable  than  the  first.  He  aga»n  resorted  to  the  expe- 
dient of  dissolution,  raised  fresh  taxes  without  any  show  of 
legal  right,  and  threw  the  chiefs  of  the  opposition  into  prison.  At 
the  same  time  a  new  grievance,  which  the  peculiar  feelings  and 
habits  of  the  English  nation  made  insupportably  painful,  and 
which  seemed  to  all  discerning  men  to  be  of  fearful  augury,  ex- 
cited general  discontent  and  alarm.  Companies  of  soldiers  were 
billeted  on  the  people  ;  and  martial  law  was,  in  some  places, 
substituted  for  the  ancient  jurisprudence  of  the  realm. 

The  King  called  a  third  Parliament,  and  soon  perceived  that 
the  opposition  was  stronger  and  fiercer  than  ever.  He  now  de- 
termined on  a  change  of  tactics.  Instead  of  opposing  an  inflex- 
ible resistance  to  the  demands  of  the  Commons,  he,  after  much 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  87 

Altercation  and  many  evasions,  agreed  to  a  compromise  which, 
if  he  had  faithfully  adhered  to  it,  would  have  averted  a  long 
series  of  calamities.  The  Parliament  granted  an  ample  supply. 
The  King  ratified,  in  the  most  solemn  manner,  that  celebrated 
law,  which  is  known  by  the  name  of  the  Petition  of  Right,  and 
which  is  the  second  Great  Charter  of  the  liberties  of  England. 
By  ratifying  that  law  he  bound  himself  never  again  to  raise 
money  without  the  consent  of  the  Houses,  never  again  to  im- 
prison any  person,  except  in  due  course  of  law,  and  never  again 
to  subject  his  people  to  the  jurisdiction  of  courts  martial. 

The  day  on  which  the  royal  sanction  was,  after  many  de- 
lays, solemnly  .given  to  this  great  Act,  was  a  day  of  joy  and 
hope.  The  Commons,  who  crowded  the  bar  of  the  House  of 
Lords,  broke  forth  into  loud  acclamations  as  soon  as  the  clerk 
had  pronounced  the  ancient  form  of  words  by  which  our  princes 
have,  during  many  ages,  signified  their  assent  to  the  wishes  of 
the  Estates  of  the  realm.  Those  acclamations  were  reechoed 
by  the  voice  of  the  capital  and  of  the  nation  ;  but  within  three 
weeks  it  became  manifest  that  Charles  had  no  intention  of  ob- 
serving the  compact  into  which  he  had  entered.  The  supply 
given  by  the  representatives  of  the  nation  was  collected.  The 
promise  by  which  that  supply  had  been  obtained  was  broken. 
A  violent  contest  followed.  The  Parliament  was  dissolved  with 
every  mark  of  royal  displeasure.  Some  of  the  most  distinguished 
members  were  imprisoned  ;  and  one  of  them.  Sir  John  Eliot, 
after  years  of  suffering,  died  in  confinement. 

Charles,  however,  could  not  venture  to  raise,  by  his  own 
authority,  taxes  sufficient  for  carrying  on  war.  He  accordingly 
hastened  to  make  peace  with  his  neighbours,  and  thenceforth 
gave  his  whole  mind  to  British  politics. 

Now  commenced  a  new  era.  Many  English  Kings  had  oc- 
casionally committed  unconstitutional  acts  :  but  none  had  ever 
systematically  attempted  to  make  himself  a  despot,  and  to  re- 
duce the  Parliament  to  a  nullity.  Such  was  the  end  which 
Charles  distinctly  proposed  to  himself.  From  March  1629  to 
April  1640,  the  Houses  were  not  convoked.  Never  in  our  his« 
lory  had  ther©  been  m  li4t©ryai  of  §i©?©a  ymvik  h^iwma  Parlia' 


88  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

ment  and  Parliament.  Only  once  had  there  been  an  interval  of 
even  half  that  length.  This  fact  alone  is  sufficient  to  refute 
those  who  represent  Charles  as  having  merely  trodden  in  the 
footsteps  of  the  Plantagenets  and  Tudors. 

It  is  proved,  by  the  testimony  of  the  King's  most  strenuous 
supporters,  that,  during  this  part  of  his  reign,  the  provisions  of 
the  Petition  of  Right  were  violated  by  him,  not  occasionally, 
but  constantly,  and  on  system  ;  that  a  large  part  of  the  revenue 
was  raised  without  any  legal  authority  ;  and  that  persons  ol> 
noxious  to  the  government  languished  for  years  in  prison,  with- 
out being  ever  called  upon  to  plead  before  any  tribunal. 

For  these  things  history  nuist  hold  the  King  himself  chieflj 
responsible.  From  the  time  of  his  third  Parliament  he  was  his 
own  prime  minister.  Several  persons,  however,  whose  temper 
and  talents  were  suited  to  his  purposes,  were  at  the  head  of  dif- 
ferent departments  of  the  administration. 

Thomas  Wentworth,  successively  created  Lord  Wentworth 
and  Earl  of  Strafford,  a  man  of  great  abilities,  elociueuce,  and 
courage,  but  of  a  cruel  and  imperious  nature,  was  the  counsellor 
most  trusted  in  political  and  military  affairs.  He  had  been  one 
of  the  most  distinguished  members  of  the  opposition,  and  felt 
towards  those  whom  he  had  deserted  that  peculiar  malignity 
which  has,  in  all  ages,  been  characteristic  of  apostates.  He 
perfectly  understood  the  feelings,  the  resources,  and  the  policy 
of  the  party  to  which  he  had  lately  belonged,  and  had  formed 
a  vast  and  deeply  meditated  scheme  which  very  nearly  con- 
founded even  the  able  tactics  of  the  statesmen  by  whom  the 
House  of  Commons  had  been  directed.  To  this  scheme,  in  his 
confidential  correspondence,  he  gave  the  expressive  name  of 
Thorough.  His  object  was  to  do  in  England  all,  and  more  than 
all,  that  Richelieu  was  doing  in  France  ;  to  make  Charles  a 
monarch  as  absolute  as  any  on  the  Continent ;  to  put  the  estates 
and  the  personal  liberty  of  the  whole  people  at  the  disposal  of 
the  crown ;  to  deprive  the  courts  of  law  of  all  independent  au- 
thority, even  in  ordinary  questions  of  civil  right  between  m.an 
and  man ;  and  to  punish  with  merciless  rigour  all  who  mur- 
mured at  the  acts  of   the  government,  or  who  applied,  even  in 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  •         89 

the  most  decent  and  regular  manner,  to  any  tribunal  for  relief 
against  those  acts.* 

This  was  his  end ;  and  he  distinctly  saw  in  what  manner 
alone  this  end  could  be  attained.  There  was,  in  truth,  about  all 
his  notions  a  clearness,  a  coherence,  a  precision,  which,  if  he 
had  not  been  pursuing  an  object  pernicious  to  his  country  and 
to  his  kind,  would  have  justly  entitled  him  to  liigh  admiration. 
He  saw  that  there  was  one  instrument,  and  only  one,  by  which 
his  vast  and  daring  projects  could  be  carried  into  execution. 
That  instrument  was  a  standing  army.  To  the  forming  of  such 
an  army,  therefore,  he  directed  all  the  energy  of  his  strong 
mind.  In  Ireland,  where  he  was  viceroy,  he  actually  succeeded 
in  establishing  a  military  despotism,  not  only  over  the  aborigi- 
nal population,  but  also  over  the  English  colonists,  and  was 
able  to  boast  that,  in  that  island,  the  King  was  as  absolute  as 
any  prince  in  the  whole  world  could  be.f 

The  ecclesiastical  administration  was,  in  the  meantime,  prin- 
cipally directed  by  William  Laud,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
Of  all  the  prelates  of  the  Anglican  Church,  Laud  had  departed 
farthest  from  the  principles  of  the  Reformation,  and  had  drawn 
nearest  to  Rome.  His  theology  was  more  remote  than  even 
that  of  the  Dutch  Arminians  from  the  theology  of  the  Calvinists. 
His  passion  for  ceremonies,  his  reverence  for  holidays,  vigils, 
and  sacred  places,  his  ill  concealed  dislike  of  the  marriage  of 
ecclesiastics,  the  ardent  and  not  altogether  disinterested  zeal 
with  which  he  asserted  the  claims  of  the  clergy  to  the  reverence 
of  the  laity,  would  have  made  him  an  object  of  aversion  to  the 
Puritans,  even  if  he  had  used  only  legal  and  gentle  means  for 
the  attainment  of  his  en  Is.  But  his  understanding  was  narrow  ; 
and  his  commerce  with  the  world  had  been  small.     He  was  by 

*  The  correspondence  of  Wentworth  seems  to  me  fully  to  bear  out  what  I  have 
said  in  the  text.  To  transcribe  all  the  passages  which  have  led  me  to  the  conclu- 
sion at  which  I  have  arrived,  would  be  impossible  ;  nor  would  it  be  easy  to  make 
a  better  selection  than  has  already  been  made  by  Mr.  Hallam.  I  may,  however, 
direct  the  attention  of  the  reader  particularly  to  the  very  able  paper  which  Went' 
worth  drew  up  respecting  the  affairs  of  the  Palatinate.  The  date  is  March  31, 
1637. 

t  These  are  Wentworth's  own  woMs.  See  his  letter  to  Laud,  dated  Dec.  16, 
1684. 


90        .  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

nature  rash,  irritable,  quick  to  feel  for  his  own  dignity,  slow  to 
sympathise  with  the  sufferings  of  others,  and  prone  to  the  error, 
common  in  superstitious  men,  of  mistaking  his  own  peevish 
and  malignant  moods  for  emotions  of  pious  zeal.  Under  his  di- 
rection every  corner  of  the  realm  was  subjected  to  a  constant 
and  minute  inspection.  Every  little  congregation  of  separatists 
was  tracked  out  and  broken  up.  Even  the  devotions  of  private 
families  could  not  escape  the  vigilance  of  his  spies.  Such  fear 
did  his  rigour  inspire  that  the  deadly  hatred  of  the  Church, 
which  festered  in  innumerable  bosoms,  was  generally  disguised 
under  an  outward  show  of  conformity.  On  the  very  eve  of 
troubles,  fatal  to  himself  and  to  his  order,  the  Bishops  of  several 
extensive  dioceses  were  able  to  report  to  him  that  not  a  sino-le 
dissenter  was  to  be  found  within  their  jurisdiction.* 

The  tribunals  afforded  no  protection  to  the  subject  against  the 
civil  and  ecclesiastical  tyranny  of  that  period.  The  judges  of 
the  common  law,  holding  their  situations  during  the  pleasure  of 
the  King,  were  scandalously  obsequious.  Yet,  obsequious  as  they 
were,  they  were  less  ready  and  less  efTicient  instruments  of 
arbitrary  power  than  a  class  of  courts,  the  memory  of  which  is 
still,  after  the  lapse  of  more  than  two  centuries,  held  in  deep 
abhorrence  by  the  nation.  Foremost  among  these  courts  in 
power  and  in  infamy  were  the  Star  Chamber  and  the  High 
Commission,  the  former  a  political,  the  latter  a  religious  inqui- 
sition. Neither  was  a  part  of  the  old  constitution  of  England. 
The  Star  Chamber  had  been  remodelled,  and  the  High  .Commis- 
sion created,  by  the  Tudors,  The  power  which  these  boards 
had  possessed  before  the  accession  of  Charles  had  been  extensive 
and  formidable,  but  had  bee  i  small  indeed  when  compared  with 
that  which  they  now  usui  ped.  Guided  chiefly  by  the  violent 
spirit  of  the  primate,  and  freed  from  the  control  of  Parliament, 
they  displayed  a  rapacity,  a  violence,  a  malignant  energy,  which 
had  been  unknown  to  any  former  age.  The  government  was 
able  through  their  instrumentality,  to  fine,  imprison,  pillory, 
and  mutilate  without  restraint-     A  separate  council  which  sate 

*  See  Ills  report  to  Charles  tor  the  year  1639. 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  91 

M  York,  under  the  presidency  of  Wentworth,  was  armed,  in  de- 
faance  of  law,  by  a  pure  act  of  prerogative,  with  ahiiost  bound- 
less power  over  the  northern  counties.  All  these  tribunals  in- 
sulted and  defied  the  authority  of  Westminster  Hall,  and  daily 
committed  excesses  which  the  most  distinguished  Royalists  have 
warmly  condemned.  We  are  informed  by  Clarendon  that  there 
was  hardly  a  man  of  note  in  the  realm  who  had  not  personal 
experience  of  the  harshness  and  greediness  of  the  Star  Chamber, 
that  the  High  Commission  had  so  conducted  itself  that  it  had 
scarce  a  friend  left  in  the  kingdom,  and  that  the  tyranny  of  the 
Council  of  York  had  made  the  Great  Charter  a  dead  letter  on 
the  north  of  the  Trent. 

The  government  of  England  was  now,  in  all  points  but  one, 
as  despotic  as  that  of  France.  But  that  one  point  was  all  im- 
portant. There  was  still  no  standing  army.  There  was  therefore, 
no  security  that  the  whole  fabric  of  tyranny  might  not  be  sub- 
verted in  a  single  day  ;  and,  if  taxes  were  imposed  by  the  royal 
authority  for  the  support  of  an  army,  it  was  probable  that  there 
would  be  an  immediate  and  irresistible  explosion.  This  was 
the  difficulty  Avhich  more  than  any  other  perplexed  Wentworth. 
The  Lord  Keeper  Finch,  in  concert  with  other  lawyers  who 
were  emploved  by  the  government,  recommended  an  expedient 
which  was  eagerly  adopted.  The  ancient  princes  of  England, 
as  they  called  on  the  inhabitants  of  the  counties  near  Scotland 
to  arm  and  array  themselves  for  the  defence  of  the  border,  had 
sometimes  called  on  the  maritime  counties  to  furnish  ships  for 
the  defence  of  the  coast.  In  the  room  of  ships  money  had 
sometimes  been  accepted.  Tliis  old  practice  it  was  now  deter- 
mined, after  a  long  interval,  not  only  to  revive  but  to  extend. 
Former  princes  had  raised  shipmoney  only  in  time  of  war :  it 
was  now  exacted  in  a  time  of  profound  peace.  Former  princes, 
even  in  the  most  perilous  wars,  had  raised  shipmoney  only 
along  the  coasts  :  it  wa"  now  exacted  from  the  inland  shires. 
Former  princes  had  raised  shipmoney  only  for  the*  maritime 
defence  of  the  country  :  it  was  now  exacted,  by  the  admission 
of  the  Royalists  themselves,  with  the  object,  not  of  maintaining 
a  navy,  but  of  furnishing  the  King  wit-li  supplies  which   might 


92  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

be  increased  at  his  discretion  to  any  amount,  and   expended  at 
his  discretion  for  any  purpose. 

Tlie  wliole  nation  was  alarmed  and  incensed.  John  Haihp' 
den,  an  opulent  and  well  born  gentleman  of  Buckinghamshire, 
highly  considered  in  his  own  neighbourhood,  but  as  yet  little 
known  to  the  kingdom  generally,  had  the  courage  to  step  for- 
ward, to  confront  the  whole  power  of  the  government,  and  take 
on  himself  the  cost  and  the  risk  of  disputing  the  prerogative 
to  which  the  King  laid  claim.  The  case  was  argued  before  the 
judges  in  the  Exchequer  Chamber.  So  strong  were  the  argu- 
ments against  the  pretensions  of  the  crown  that,  dependent  and 
servile  as  the  judges  were,  the  majority  against  Hampden  was 
the  smallest  possible.  Still  there  was  a  majority.  The  inter- 
preters of  the  law  had  pronounced  that  one  great  and  produc- 
tive tax  might  be  imposed  by  the  royal  authority.  Wentworth 
justly  observed  that  it  was  impossible  to  vindicate  their  judg- 
mei:t  except  by  reasons  directly  leading  to  a  conclusion  which 
they  had  not  ventured  to  draw.  If  monev  mioht  lejjallv  be 
raised  w^ithout  the  consent  of  Parliament  for  the  support  of  a 
ileet,  it  was  not  easy  to  deny  that  money  might,  without  con- 
sent of  Parliament,  be  legally  raised  for  the  support  of  an 
army. 

Tlie  decision  of  the  judges  increased  the  irritation  of 
the  people.  A  century  earlier,  irritation  less  serious  would 
have  produced  a  general  rising.  But  discontent  did  not 
now  so  readiljr  as  in  an  earlier  age  take  the  form  of  rebel- 
lion. The  nation  had  been  long  steadily  advancing  in  wealth 
and  in  civilisation.  Since  the  great  northern  Earls  took  up 
arms  against  Elizabeth  seventy  years  had  elapsed  ;  and  during 
those  seventy  years  there  had  been  no  civil  war.  Never,  dur- 
ing the  whole  existence  of  the  English  nation,  had  so  long  a 
period  passed  without  intestine  hostilities.  Men  had  become 
accustomed  to  the  pursuits  of  peaceful  industry,  and,  exasperated 
as  they  were,  hesitated  long  before  they  drew  the  sword. 

This  was  the  conjuncture  at  which  the  liberties  of  the  na- 
tion were  in  the  greatest  peril.  The  opponents  of  the  govern- 
ment began  to  despair  of    the  destiny  of  their  country  ;    and 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  93 

many  looked  to  the  American  wilderness  as  the  only  asylum  in 
which  they  could  enjoy  civil  and  spiritual  freedom.  There  a 
few  resolute  Puritans,  who,  in  the  cause  of  their  religion,  feared 
neither  the  rage  of  the  ocean  nor  the  hardships  of  uncivilised 
life,  neither  the  fangs  of  savage  beasts  nor  the  tomahawks  of 
more  savage  men,  had  built,  amidst  the  primeval  forests,  vil- 
lages which  are  now  great  and  opulent  cities,  but  which  have, 
through  every  change,,  retained  some  trace  of  the  character 
derived  from  their  founders.  The  government  regarded  these 
infant  colonies  with  aversion,  and  attempted  violently  to  stop 
the  stream  of  emigration,  but  could  not  prevent  the  population 
of  New  England  from  being  largely  recruited  by  stouthearted 
and  Godfearing  men  from  every  part  of  the  old  England. 
And  now  Wentworth  exulted  in  the  near  prospect  of  Thorough. 
A  few  years  might  probably  suffice  for  the  execution  of  his  great 
design.  If  strict  economy  were  observed,  if  all  collision  with 
foreign  powers  were  carefully  avoided,  the  debts  of  the  crown 
would  be  cleared  off :  there  would  be  funds  available  for  the 
support  of  a  large  military  force ;  and  that  force  would  soon 
break  the  refractory  spirit  of  the  nation. 

At  this  crisis  an  act  of  insane  bigotry  suddenly  changed  the 
whole  face  of  public  affairs.  Had  the  King  been  wise,  he 
would  have  pursued  a  (cautious  and  soothing  policy  towards 
Scotland  till  he  Wiis  master  in  the  South.  For  Scotland  was  of 
all  his  kingdoms  that  in  which  there  was  the  greatest  risk  that 
a  spark  might  produce  a  flame,  and  that  a  flame  might  become 
a  conflagration.  C^onstitutional  opposition,  indeed,  such  as  he 
had  encountered  at  Westminster,  he  had  not  to  apprehend  at 
Edinburgh.  The  Parliament  of  his  northern  kingdom  was  a 
very  different  body  from  that  which  bore  the  same  name  in 
England.  It  was  ill  constituted  :  it  was  little  considered ;  and 
it  had  never  imposed  any  serious  restraint  on  any  of  his  prede- 
cessors. The  three  Estates  sate  in  one  house.  The  commis- 
sioners of  the  burghs  were  considered  merely  as  retainers  of  the 
great  nobles.  No  act  could  be  introduced  till  it  had  been 
approved  by  the  Lords  of  Articles,  a  committee  which  was 
really,  though    not  in  form,  nominated  by  the    crown.     But, 


94  HISTORY    OK    ENGLAND. 

thouo-h  the  Scottish  Parliament  was  obsequious,  the  Scottish 
people  had  always  been  singularly  turbulent  and  ungovernable. 
They  had  butchered  their  first  James  in  his  bedchumoer:  they 
had  repeatedly  arrayed  themselves  in  arms  against  James  the 
Second ;  they  had  slain  James  the  Third  on  the  field  of  battle : 
their  disobedience  had  broken  the  heart  of  James  the  Fifth  • 
they  had  deposed  and  imprisoned  Mary  :  they  had. led  her  son 
captive ;  and  their  temper  was  still  as  intractable  as  ever. 
Their  habits  were  rude  and  martial.  All  along  the  southern 
border,  and  all  along  the  line  between  the  higlihiuds  and  the 
lowlands,  raged  an  incessant  predatory  war.  In  every  part  of 
the  country  men  were  accustomed  to  redress  their  wrongs  by 
the  strong  hand.  Whatever  loyalty  the  nation  had  anciently 
felt  to  the  Stuarts  had  cooled  during  their  long  absence.  The 
supreme  influence  over  the  public  mind  was  divided  between 
two  classes  of  malecontents,  the  lords  of  the  soil  and  the 
preachers ;  lords  animated  by  the  same  spirit  which  had  often 
impelled  the  old  Douglasses  to  withstand  the  royal  house,  and 
preachers  who  had  inherited  the  republican  opinions  and  the 
unconquerable  spirit  of  Knox.  Both  the  national  and  religious 
feelings  of  the  population  had  been  wounded.  All  orders  of 
men  complained  that  their  country,  that  country  which  had,  with 
so  much  glory,  defended  her  independence  against  the  ablest  and 
bravest  Plantagenets,  had,  through  the  instrumentality  of  her 
native  princes,  become  in  effect,  though  not  in  name,  a  province 
of  England.  In  no  part  of  Europe  had  tlie  Calvin istic  doctrine 
and  discipline  taken  so  strong  a  hold  on  the  public  mind.  The 
Church  of  Rome  was  regarded  by  the  great  body  of  the  people 
with  a  hatred  which  might  justly  be  called  ferocious ;  and  the 
Church  of  England,  which  seemed  to  be  every  day  becoming 
more  and  more  like  the  Church  of  Rome,  was  an  object  of 
scarcely  less  aversion. 

The  government  had  long  wished  to  extend  the  Anglican 
system  over  the  whole  island,  and  had  alread}^,  with  this  view, 
made  several  changes  highly  distasteful  to  every  Presbyterian. 
One  innovation,  however,  the  most  hazardous  of  all,  because  it 
was  directly  cognisable  by  the  senses  of  the   common  jjeople, 


BEFORE    THE   RESTORATION.  95 

had  not  yet  been  attempted.  The  public  worship  of  God  was 
still  couducted  in  the  manner  acceptable  to  the  nation.  Now, 
however,  Charles  and  Laud  determined  to  force  on  the  Scots 
the  English  liturgy,  or  rather  a  liturgy  which,  wherever  it 
differed  l^-om  that  of  England,  differed,  in  the  judgment  of  all 
riofid  Protestants,  for  the  worse. 

To  this  step,  taken  in  the  mere  wantonness  of  tyranny,  and 
in  criminal  ignorance  or  more  criminal  c  )utempt  of  public 
feeling,  our  country  owes  her  freedom.  The  first  performance 
of  the  foreign  ceremonies  produced  a  riot.  The  riot  rapidly 
became  a  revolution.  Ambition,  patriotism,  fanaticism,  were 
mingled  in  one  headlong  torrent.  The  whole  nation  was  in 
arms.  The  power  of  England  was  indeed,  as  appeared  some 
years  later,  sufficient  to  coerce  Scotland  :  but  a  large  part  of  the 
English  people  sympathised  with  the  religious  feelings  of  the 
insurgents  ;  and  many  Englishmen  who  had  no  scruple  about 
antiphonies  and  genuflexions,  altars  and  surplices,  saw  with 
pleasure  the  progress  of  a  rebellion  which  seemed  likely  to 
confound  the  arbitrary  projects  of  the  court,  and  to  make  the 
calling  of  a  Parliament  necessary. 

For  the  senseless  freak  which  had  produced  these  effects 
"Wentworth  is  not  responsible.*  It  had,  in  fact,  thrown  all  his 
plans  into  confusion.  To  counsel  submission,  however,  was  not 
in  his  nature.  An  attempt  was  made  to  put  down  the  insurrec- 
tion by  the  sword :  but  the  King's  military  means  and  military 
talents  were  unequal  to  the  task.  To  impose  fresh  taxes  on 
England  in  defiance  of  law,  would,  at  this  conjuncture,  have 
been  madness.  No  resource  was  left  but  a  Parliament ;  and 
in  the  spring  of  1640  a  Parliament  was  convoked. 

The  nation  had  been  put  into  good  humour  by  the  prospect 
of  seeing  constitutional  government  restoi'ed,  and  grievances 
redressed.  The  new  House  of  Commons  was  more  temperate 
and  more  respectful  to  the  throne  than  any  which  had  sate 
since  the  death  of  Elizabeth.  The  moderation  of  this  assembly 
has  been  highly  extolled  by  the  most  distinguished  Royalists, 
and  seems  to  have  caused  no  small  vexation  and  disappointment 
*  See  his  letter  to  the  Earl  of  Northumberland,  dated  July  30,  1638. 


96  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

to  the  chiefs  of  the  opposition  :  but  it  was  the  uniform  practice 
of  Charles,  a  practice  equally  impolitic  and  ungenerous,  to  re- 
fuse all  compliance  with  the  desires  of  his  people,  till  those 
dasires  were  expressed  in  a  menacing  tone.  As  soon  as  the 
Commons  showed  a  disposition  to  take  into  consideAtiou  the 
grievances  under  which  the  country  had  suffered  during  eleven 
years,  the  King  dissolved  the  Parliament  with  every  mark  of 
displeasure. 

Between  the  dissolution  of  this  shortlived  assembly  aud  the 
meeting  of  that  ever  memorable  body  known  by  the  name  of 
the  Long  Parliament-,  intervened  a  few  months,  during  which 
the  yoke  was  pressed  down  more  severely  than  ever  on  the  na- 
tion, while  the  spirit  of  the  nation  rose  up  more  angrily  than 
ever  against  the  yoke.  Members  of  the  House  of  Commons 
were  questioned  by  the  Privy  Council  touching  their  parliamen- 
tary conduct,  and  thrown  into  prison  for  refusing  to  reply. 
Shipmoney  was  levied  with  increased  rigour.  The  Lord  Mayor 
and  the  Sheriffs  of  London  were  threatened  with  imj^risonment 
for  remissness  in  collecting  the  payments.  Soldiers  were  en- 
listed by  force.  Money  for  their  support  was  exacted  from  their 
counties.  Torture,  which  had  always  been  illegal,  and  which 
had  recently  been  declared  illegal  even  by  the  servile  judges  of 
that  age,  was  inflicted  for  the  last  time  in  England  in  the  month 
of  May,  1610. 

Everything  now  depended  on  the  event  of  the  King's  mili- 
tary operations  against  the  S'^ots.  Among  his  troops  there  was 
little  of  that  feeling  which  soparates  professional  soldiers  from 
the  mass  of  a  nation,  and  attaches  them  to  their  leaders.  His 
army,  composed  for  the  most  part  of  recruits,  who  regretted  the 
plough  from  which  they  had  been  violently  taken,  and  who 
were  imbued  with  the  religious  and  political  sentiments  then 
prevalent  throughout  the  country,  was  more  formidable  to  him- 
self than  to  the  enemy.  The  Scots,  encouraged  by  the  heads 
of  the  English  opposition,  aud  feebly  resisted  by  the  English 
forces,  marched  across  the  Tweed  and  the  T^'ne,  and  encamped 
on  the  borders  of  rurkshire.  And  now  the  murmurs  of  dis- 
content swelled  uito  an   uproar   by  which  all   spirits  save  one 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  97 

were  overawed.  But  the  voice  of  Strafford  was  still  for 
Thorouofh ;  and  he  even,  in  this  extremity,  showed  a  nature  so 
cruel  and  despotic,  that  his  own  pikemen  were  ready  to  tear  him 
in  pieces. 

There  was  yet  one  last  expedient  which,  as  the  King  flat 
tered  himself,  might  save  him  from  the  misery  of  facing  another 
House  of  ('ommous.  To  the  House  of  Lords  he  was  less 
averse.  The  Bishops  were  devoted  to  him  ;  and  though  the 
temporal  peers  were  generally  dissatisfied  with  his  administra- 
tion, they  were,  as  a  class,  so  deeply  interested  in  the  mainte- 
nance of  order,  and  in  the  stability  of  ancient  institutions,  that 
they  were  not  likely  to  call  for  extensive  reforms.  Departing 
from  the  uninterrupted  practice  of  centuries,  he  called  a  Great 
Council  consisting  of  Lords  alone.  But  the  Lords  were  too 
prudent  to  assume  the  unconstitutional  functions  with  which  he 
wished  to  invest  them.  Without  money,  without  credit,  with- 
out authority  even  in  his  own  camp,  he  yielded  to  the  pressure 
of  necessity.  The  Houses  were  convoked ;  and  the  elections 
proved  that,  since  the  spring,  the  distrust  and  hatred  with  which 
the  government  was  regarded  had  made  fearful  progress. 

In  November,  1640,  met  that  renowned  Parliament  which, 
in  spite  of  many  errors  and  disasters,  is  justly  entitled  to  the 
reverence  and  gratitude  of  all  who,  in  any  part  of  the  world, 
enjoy  the  blessings  of  constitutional  government. 

During  the  year  which  followed,  no  very  important  division 
of  opinion  appeared  in  the  Houses.  The  civil  and  ecclesiasti- 
cal administration  had,  through  a  period  of  nearly  twelve  years, 
been  so  oppressive  and  so  unconstitutional  that  even  those 
classes  of  which  the  inclinations  are  generally  on  the  side  of 
order  and  authority  were  eager  to  promote  popular  reforms, 
and  to  bring  the  instruments  of  tyranny  to  justice.  It  was  en- 
acted that  no  interval  of  more  than  three  years  should  ever 
elapse  between  Parliament  and  Parliament,  and  that,  if  writs 
under  the  Great  Seal  were  not  issued  at  the  proper  time,  the 
returning  officers  should,  without  such  writs,  call  the  constit- 
uent bodies  together  for  the  choice  of  representatives.  The 
Star  Chamber,  the  High  Commission,  the  Council  of  York  were 


*J8  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

swept  away.  Men  who,  after  suffering  cruel  mutilations,  had 
been  confined  in  remote  dungeons,  regained  their  liberty.  On 
the  chief  ministers  of  the  crown  the  vengeance  of  the  nation 
was  unsparingly  wreaked.  The  Lord  Keeper,  the  Primate,  the 
Lord  Lieutenant  were  impeached.  Finch  saved  himself  by 
flight.  Laud  was  flung  into  the  Tower.  Straffoi'd  was  put  to 
death  by  act  of  attainder.  On  the  day  on  which  this  act  passed, 
the  King  gave  his  assent  to  a  law  by  which  he  bound  himself 
not  to  adjourn,  prorogur,  or  dissolve  the  existing  Parliament 
without  its  own  consent. 

After  ten  months  of  assiduous  toil,  the  Houses,  in  Septem 
ber  1641,  adjourned  for  a  short  vacation  ;  and  the  King  visited 
Scotland.  He  with  difRculty  pacified  that  kingdom  by  consent- 
ing, not  only  to  relinquish  his  plans  of  ecclesiastical  reform, 
but  even  to  pass,  with  a  very  bad  grace,  an  act  declaring  that 
episcopacy  was  contrary  to  the  word  of  God. 

The  recess  of  the  Euirlish  Parliament  lasted  six  weeks. 
The  day  on  which  the  Houses  met  again  is  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  epochs  in  our  histor3\  From  that  day  dates  the 
corporate  existence  of  the  two  great  parties  which  have  ever 
.mce  alternately  governed  the  country.  In  one  sense,  indeed, 
the  distinotion  which  then  became  obvious  had  always  existed, 
and  always  must  exist.  For  it  has  its  origin  in  diversities  of 
temper,  of  understanding,  and  of  interest,  which  are  found  in, 
all  societies,  and  which  will  be  found  till  the  human  mind  ceases 
to  be  drawn  in  opposite  directions  by  the  charm  of  habit  and 
by  the  charm  of  novelt3^  Not  only  in  politics  but  in  literature, 
in  art,  in  science,  in  surgery  ^d  mechanics,  in  navigation  and 
agriculture,  nay,  even  in  mathematics,  we  find  this  distinction. 
Everywhere  there  is  a  class  of  men  who  cling  with  fondness  to 
whatever  is  ancient,  and  who,  even  when  convinced  by  over- 
powering reasons  that  innovation  would  be  beneficial,  consent 
to  it  with  many  misgivings  and  forebodings.  We  find  also 
everywhere  another  class  of  men,  sanguine  in  hope,  bold  in 
speculation,  always  pressing  forward,  quick  to  discern  the  im» 
perfections  of  v/iiatever  exists,  disposed  to  think  lightly  of  the 
risks  and  inconveniences  which  attend  improvements,  and  disr 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  99 

posed  to  give  every  change  credit  for  being  an  improvement. 
In  the  sentiments  of  both  chxsses  there  is  something  to  approve. 
But  of  both  the  best  specimens  will  be  found  not  far  from  the 
common  i^rontier.  The  extreme  section  of  one  class  consists 
of  bigoted  dotards  :  the  extreme  section  of  the  other  consists  of 
shallow  and  reckless  empirics. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  our  very  first  Parliaments 
might  have  been  discerned  a  body  of  members  anxious  to  jjre- 
serve,  and  a  body  eager  to  reform.  But,  while  the  sessions  of 
the  legislature  were  short,  these  bodies  did  not  take  definite 
and  permanent  forms,  array  themselves  under  recognised  leaders, 
or  assume  distinguishing  names,  badges,  and  war  cries.  iTuring 
the  first  months  of  the  Long  Parliament,  the  indignation  excited 
by  many  years  of  lawless  oppression  was  so  strong  and  general 
that  the  House  of  Commons  acted  as  one  man.  Abuse  after 
abuse  disappeared  without  a  struggle.  If  a  small  minority  of 
the  representative  body  wished  to  retain  the  Star  Chamber  and 
the  High  Commission,  that  minority,  overawed  by  the  enthusiasm 
and  by  the  numerical  superiority  of  the  reformers,  contented 
itself  with  secretly  regretting  institutions  which  could  not,  with 
any  hope  of  success,  be  openly  defended.  At  a  later  period  the 
Royalists  found  it  convenient  to  antedate  the  separation  between 
themselves  and  their  oj^yponents,  and  to  attribute  the  Act  which 
restrained  the  King  from  dissolving  or  proroguing  the  Parlia- 
ment, the  Triennial  Act,  the  impeachment  of  the  ministers,  and 
the  attainder  of  Strafford,  to  the  faction  which  afterwards  made 
war  on  the  Kinij.  But  no  artifice  could  be  more  disinjxenuous. 
Every  one  of  those  strong  measures  was  actively  promoted  by 
the  men  who  Avere  afterwards  foremost  among  the  Cavaliers. 
No  republican  spoke  of  the  long  misgovernment  of  Charles 
more  severely  than  Colepepper.  The  most  remarkable  speech 
in  favour  of  the  Triennial  Bill  was  made  by  Digby.  The  im- 
peachment of  the  Lord  Keeper  was  moved  by  Falkland.  The 
demand  that  the  Lord  Lieutenant  should  be  kept  close  prisoner 
was  made  at  the  bar  of  the  Lords  *  by  Hyde.  Not  till  the  law 
attainting  Sti-afford  was  proposed  did  the  signs  of  serious  dis- 
union become  visible.     Even  against   that  law,  a  law   which 


100  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

nothing  but  extreme  necessity  could  justify,  only  about  sixty 
members  of  the  House  of  Commons  voted.  It  is  certain  that 
Hyde  was  not  in  the  minority,  and  that  Falkland  not  only 
voted  with  the  majority,  but  spoke  strongly  for  the  bilL  Even 
the  few  who  entertained  a  scruple  about  inflictmg  death  by  a 
retrospective  enactment  thought  it  necessary  to  express  the 
utmost  abhorrence  of  Strafford's  character  and  administration. 

But  under  this  apparent  concord  a  great  schism  was  latent  ; 
and  when,  in  October,  1641,  the  Parliament  reassembled  after 
a  short  recess,  two  hostile  parties,  essentially  the  same  with  those 
which,  under  different  names,  have  ever  since  contended,  and  a'-e 
still  contending,  for  the  direction  of  public  affairs,  appeared  con- 
fronting each  other.  Daring  some  years  they  were  designated 
as  Cavaliers  and  Roundheads.  They  were  subsequently  called 
Tories  and  Whigs  i  nor  does  it  seem  that  these  appellations  are 
likely  soon  to  become  obsolete. 

It  would  not  bcdifficul'-.  to  compose  a  lampoon  or  panegyric 
on  either  of  these  renowned  factions.  For  no  man  not  utterly 
destitute  of  judgment  ..  ^1  candor  will  deny  that  there  are  many 
deep  stains  on  the  fame  of  the  party  to  which  he  belongs,  or  that 
the  party  to  which  he  is  opposed  may  justly  boast  of  many  illus- 
trious names,  of  many  heroic  actions,  and  of  many  great  services 
rendered  to  the  state.  The  truth  is  that,  though  both  parties 
have  often  seriously  erred.  'and  could  have  spared  neither. 

If,  in  her  institutions,  freedom  and  order,  the  advantages  arising 
from  innovation  and  the  advantages  arising  from  prescription, 
have  been  combined  to  an  extent  elsewhere  unknown,  we  may 
attribute  this  happy  peculiarity  to  the  strenuous  conflicts  and  al- 
ternate victories  of  two  rival  confederacies  of  statesmen,  a  con- 
federacy zealous  for  authority  and  antiquity,  and  a  confederacy 
zealous  for  liberty  and  progress. 

It  ought  to  be  remembered  that  the  difference  between  the 
two  great  sections  of  English  politicians  has  always  been  a  dif- 
ference rather  of  degree  than  of  principle.  There  were  certain 
limits  on  the  right  and  on  the  left,  which  were  very  rarely  over- 
stepped. A  few  enthusiasts  on  one  side  were  ready  to  lay  all 
our  laws  and  franchises  at  the  fefet  of  our  Kings.     A  few  enthu' 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  101 

siasts  on  the  other  side  were  bent  on  pursuing,  through  endless 
civil  troubles,  their  darling  phantom  of  a  republic.  But  the 
great  majority  of  those  who  fought  for  the  crown  were  averse  to 
despotism  ;  and  the  great  majority  of  the  champions  of  popular 
rights  were  averse  to  anarchy.  Twice,  in  the  course  of  the  sev- 
enteenth century,  the  two  parties  suspended  their  dissensions, 
and  united  their  strength  in  a  common  cause.  Their  first  coa- 
lition restored  hereditary  monarchy.  Their  second  coalition  res- 
cued constitutional  freedom. 

It  is  also  to  be  noted  that  these  two  parties  have  never  been 
i\},q  whole  nation,  nay,  that  they  have  never,  taken  together,, 
made  up  a  majority  of  the  nation.  Between  them  has  always 
been  a  great  mass,  which  has  not  steadfastly  adhered  to  either, 
which  has  sometimes  remained  inertly  neutral,  and  which  has 
sometimes  oscillated  to  and  fro.  That  mass  has  more  than  once 
passed  in  a  few  years  from  one  extreme  to  the  other,  and  back 
again.  Sometimes  it  has  changed  si.^ec,  merely  because  it  was 
tired  of  supporting  the  same  men,  sometimes  because  it  was  dis- 
mayed by  its  own  excesses,  rometimes  because  it  had  expected 
imjaossibilities,  and  had  been  disappointed.  But  whenever  it 
has  leaned  with  its  whole  wei  t  in  either  direction,  that  weight 
has,  fftr  the  time,  been  irresisti 

When  the  rival  parties  first  appeared  in  a  distinct  form,  they 
seemed  to  be  not  unequally  matched.  On  the  side  of  the 
government  was  a  large  ma  'ty  of  the  nobles,  and  of  those  op; 
ulent  and  well  descended  gentlemen  to  whom  nothing  was  want- 
ing of  nobility  but  the  name.  These,  with  the  dependents  whose 
support  they  could  command,  were  no  small  power  in  the  state. 
On  the  same  side  were  the  great  body  of  the  clergy,  both  the 
Universities,  and  all  those  laymen  who  were  strongly  attached 
to  episcopal  government  and  to  the  Anglican  ritual.  These 
respectable  classes  found  themselves  in  the  company  of  some 
allies  much  less  decorous  than  themselves.  The  Puritan  aus- 
terity drove  to  the  King's  faction  all  who  made  pleasure  their 
business,  who  affected  gallantry,  sj^lendour  of  dress,  or  taste  in 
the  higher  arts.  With  these  went  all  who  live  by  amusing  the 
leisure  of  others,  from  the  painL^^^nd  the  comic  poet,  down  t'- 

OTATB  TEACHERS  COCL 
.dANTA   BARBARA.    CALlfo^,, 

/  D  //  ^  rf 


102  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

ihe  ropedancer  and  the  Merry  Andrew.  For  these  artists  well 
knew  that  they  might  thrive  under  a  superb  and  luxurious  des- 
potism, but  must  starve  under  the  rigid  rule  of  the  precisians. 
In  the  same  interest  were  the  Roman  Catholics  to  a  man.  The 
Queen,  a  daughter  of  France,  was  of  their  own  faith.  Her  hus- 
band was  known  to  be  strongly  attached  to  her,  and  not  a  little 
in  awe  of  her.  Though  undoubtedly  ar  Protestant  on  conviction, 
he  regarded  the  professors  of  the  old  religion  with  no  ill-will, 
and  would  gladly  have  granted  them  a  much  larger  toleration 
than  he  was  disposed  to  concede  to  the  Presbyterians.  If  the 
opposition  obtained  the  mastery,  it  was  probable  that  the  san- 
guinary laws  enacted  against  Papists,  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth, 
would  be  severely  enforced.  The  Roman  Catholics  were  there- 
fore induced  by  the  strongest  motives  to  espouse  the  cause  ol 
the  court.  They  in  general  acted  with  a  caution  which  brought 
on  them  the  reproach  of  cowardice  and  lukewarmness  ;  but  it  is 
probable  that,  in  maintaining  great  reserve,  they  consulted  the 
King's  interest  as  well  as  their  own.  It  was  not  for  his  service 
that  they  should  be  conspicuous  among  his  friends. 

The  main  strength  of  .the  opposition  lay  among  the  small 
freeholders  in  the  country,  and  among  the  merchants  and  shop- 
keepers of  the  towns.  But  these  were  headed  by  a  formidable 
minority  of  the  aristocracy,  a  minority  which  included  the  rich 
and  powerful  Earls  of  Northumberland,  Bedford,  Warwick, 
.  Stamford,  and  Essex,  and  several  other  Lords  of  great  wealth 
and  influence.  In  the  same  ranks  was  found  the  whole  body 
of  Protestant  Nonconformists,  and  most  of  those  members  of 
the  Established  Church  who  still  adhered  to  the  Calvinistic 
opinions  which,  forty  years  before,  had  been  generally  held  by 
the  prelates  and  clergy.  The  municipal  corporations  took,  with 
few  exceptions,  the  same  side.  In  the  House  of  Commons  the 
opposition  preponderated,  but  not  very  decidedly. 

Neither  i)arty  wanted  strong  arguments  for  the  course  which 
it  was  disposed  to  take.  The  reasonings  of  the  most  enlightened 
Royalists  may  be  summed  up  thus  : — "  It  is  true  that  great 
abuses  have  existed ;  but  they  have  been  redressed.  It  is  true 
that  precious  rights  have  been  invaded ;  but  they  have  beeo 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  103 

vindicated  and  surrounded  with  new  securities.  The  sittings  of 
the  Estates  of  the  realm  liave  been,  in  defiance  of  all  precedent 
and  of  the  spirit  of  the  constitution,  intermitted  during  eleven 
years  ;  but  it  has  now  been  provided  that  henceforth  three  years 
shall  never  elapse  without  a  Parliament.  The  Star  Chamber, 
the  High  Connnission,  the  Council  of  York,  oppressed  and  plun- 
dered us  ;  but  those  hateful  courts  have  now  ceased  to  exist. 
The  Lord  Lieutenant  aimed  at  establishing  military  despotism  ; 
but  he  has  answered  for  his  treason  witli  his  head.  The  Pri- 
mate tainted  our  worship  with  Popish  rites  and  punished  our 
scruples  with  Popish  cruelty  ;  but  he  is  awaiting  in  the  Tower 
the  judgment  of  his  peers.  The  Loid  Keeper  sanctioned  a  plan 
by  which  the  pro2:)erty  of  every  man  in  England  was  placed  at 
the  mercy  of  the  Crown  ;  but  he  has  been  disgraced,  ruined,  and 
compelled  to  take  refuge  in  a  foreign  land.  The  ministers  of 
tyranny  have  expiated  their  crimes.  The  victims  of  tyranny 
have  been  compensated  for  their  sufferings.  It  would  therefore 
be  most  unwise  to  persevere  further  in  that  course  which  was 
justifiable  and  necessary  when  we  first  met  after  a  long  interval, 
and  found  the  whole  administration  one  mass  of  abuses.  It  is 
time  to  take  heed  that  we  do  not  so  pursue  our  victory  over 
despotism  as  to  run  into  anarchy.  It  was  not  in  our  power  to 
overturn  the  bad  institutions  which  lately  afflicted  our  country, 
without  shocks  which  have  loosened  the  foundations  of  Govern- 
ment.  Now  that  those  institutions  have  fallen,  we  must  ha.  t:;n 
to  prop  the  edifice  which  it  was  lately  our  duty  to  batter. 
Henceforth  it  will  be  our  wisdom  to  look  with  jealousy  on 
schemes  of  innovation,  and  to  guard  from  encroachment  all  the 
prerogatives  with  which  the  law  has,  for  the  public  good,  armed 
the  sovereign." 

Such  were  the  views  of  those  men  of  whom  the  excellent 
Falkland  may  be  regarded  as  the  leader.  It  was  contended  on 
the  other  side  with  not  less  force,  by  men  of  not  less  ability 
and  virtue,  that  the  safety  which  the  liberties  of  the  English 
people  enjoyed  was  rather  appai'ent  than  real,  and  that  the 
arbitrary  projects  of  the  court  would  be  resumed  as  soon  as  the 
vigilance  of  the  Commons  was  relaxed.  True  it  was, — such  was 


104  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  reasoning  of  Pym,  of  Hollis,  and  of  Hampden, — that  many 
good  laws  had  been  passed  ■  but,  if  good  laws  had  been  sufficient 
to  restrain  the  King,  his  subjects  would  have  had  little  reason 
ever  to  complain  of  his  administration.  Tlie  recent  statutes 
were  surely  not  of  more  authority  than  the  Great  Charter  or 
the  Petition  of  Right.  Yet  neither  the  Great  Charter,  hal- 
lowed by  the  veneration  of  four  centuries,  nor  the  Petition  of 
Right,  sanctioned,  aftei'  mature  reflection,  and  for  valuable  con- 
sideration, by  Charles  himself,  had  been  found  effectual  for  the 
protection  of  the  people.  If  once  the  check  of  fear  were  with- 
drawn, if  once  the  spirit  of  opposition  were  suffered  to  slumber, 
all  the  securities  for  English  freedom  resolved  themselves  into 
a  single  one,  the  roy;.l  word ;  and  it  had  been  proved  by  a  long 
and  severe  experience  that  the  royal  word  could  not  be  trusted. 
The  two  parties  were  still  regarding  each  other  with  cau- 
tious  hostility,  and  had  not  yet  measured  their  strength,  when 
news  arrived  which  inflamed  the  passions  and  confirmed  the 
opinions  of  both.  The  great  chieftains  of  Ulster,  who,  at  the 
time  of  the  accession  of  James,  had,  after  a  long  struggle,  sub- 
mitted to  the  royal  authority,  had  not  long  brooked  the  humili- 
ation of  dependence.  They  had  conspired  against  the  English 
government,  and  had  been  attainted  of  treason.  Their  immense 
domains  had  been  forfeited  to  the  crown,  and  had  soon  been 
peopled  by  thousands  of  English  and  Scotch  emigrants.  The 
new  settlers  were,  in  civilisation  and  intelligence,  far  superior 
to  the  native  population,  and  sometimes  abused  their  superiority. 
The  animosity  produced  by  difference  of  race  was  increased  by 
difference  of  religion.  Under  the  iron  rule  of  Wentworth, 
scarcely  a  murmur  was  heard  i  but,  when  that  strong  pressure 
was  withdrawn,  when  Scotland  had  set  the  example  of  success- 
ful resistance,  when  England  was  distracted  by  internal  quarrels, 
the  smothered  rage  of  the  Irish  broke  forth  into  acts  of  fearful 
violence.  On  a  sudden,  the  aboriginal  population  rose  on  the 
colonists.  A  war,  to  which  national  and  theological  hatred 
gave  a  character  of  .  peculiar  ferocity,  desolated  Ulster,  and 
spread  to  the  neighbouring  jjrovinces.  The  castle  of  Dublin 
was  scarcely  thought  secure.     Every  post  brought  to  London 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATIOX.  '  1  U J 

exaggerated  accounts  of  outrages  which,  without  any  exag- 
geration, were  sufficient  to  move  pity  and  horror.  These  evil 
tidings  roused  to  the  height  the  zeal  of  both  the  great  parties 
which  were  marshalled  against  each  other  at  Westminster.  The 
Royalists  maintained  that  it  was  the  first  duty  of  every  good 
Englishman  and  Protestant,  at  such  a  crisis,  to  strengthen  the 
hands  of  the  sovereign.  To  the  opposition  it  seemed  that  there 
were  now  stronojer  reasons  than  ever  for  thwartinjj  and  restrain- 
ing  him.  That  the  commonwealth  was  in  danger  was  undoubt- 
edly a  good  reason  for  giving  large  powers  to  a  trustworthy 
magistrate  :  but  it  was  a  good  reason  for  taking  away  powers 
from  a  magistrate  who  was  at  heart  a  public  enemy.  To  raise  a 
great  army  had  always  been  the  King's  first  object.  A  great 
army  must  now  be  raised.  It  was  to  be  feared  that,  unless  some 
new  securities  were  devised,  the  forces  levied  for  the  reduction 
of  Ireland  would  be  employed  against  the  liberties  of  England. 
Nor  was  this  all.  A  horrible  suspicion,  unjust  indeed,  but  not 
altogether  unnatural,  had  arisen  in  many  minds.  The  Queen 
was  an  avowed  Roman  Catholic  :  the  King  was  not  regarded 
by  the  Puritans,  whom  he  had  mercilessly  persecuted,  as  a 
sincere  Protestant ;  and  so  notorious  was  his  duplicity,  that 
tliuere  was  no  treachery  of  which  his  subjects  might  not,  with 
some  show  of  reason,  believe  him  capable.  It  was  soon 
whispered  that  the  rebellion  of  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Ulster 
was  part  of  a  vast  work  of  darkness  which  had  been  planned  at 
Whitehall. 

After  some  weeks  of  prelude,  the  first  great  parliamentary 
conflict  between  the  parties,  which  have  ever  since  contended, 
and  are  still  contending,  for  the  government  of  the  nation,  took 
place  on  the  twenty-second  of  November,  1G41.  "It  was  moved 
by  the  opposition,  that  the  House  of  Commons  should  present 
to  the  King  a  remonstrance,  enumerating  the  faults  of  his 
administration  from  the  time  of  his  accession,  and  expressing" 
the  distrust  with  which  his  policy  was  still  regarded  by  his 
people.  That  assembly,  which  a  few  months  before  had  been 
unanimous  in  calling  for  the  reform  of  abuses,  was  now  divided 
into  two    fierce  and  eager   factions   of  nearly  equal   strength. 


106  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

After  a  hot  debute  of  many  hours,  the  remonstrance  was  carried 
b}'^  only  eleven  votes. 

The  result  of  this  struggle  was  highly  favourable  to  the 
conservative  party.  It  could  not  be  doubted  that  only  some 
great  indiscretion  could  prevent  them  from  shortly  obtaining  the 
predominance  in  the  Lower  House.  The  Upper  House  was 
already  their  own.  Nothing  was  wanting  to  ensure  their  suc- 
cess, but  that  the  King  should,  in  all  his  conduct,  show  respect 
for  the  laws  and  scrupulqus  good  faith  towards  his  subjects. 

His  first  measures  promised  well.  He  had,  it  seemed,  at 
last  discovered  that  an  entire  change  of  system  was  necessary, 
and  had  wisely  made  up  his  mind  to  what  could  no  longer  be 
avoided.  He  declared  his  determination  to  govern  in  harmony 
with  the  Commons,  and,  for  that  end,  to  call  to  his  councils  men 
in  whose  talents  and  character  the  Commons  might  place  con- 
fidence. Nor  was  the  selection  ill  made.  Falkland,  Hyde,  and 
Colepepper,  all  three  distinguished  by  the  part  which  they  had 
taken  in  reforming  abuses  and  in  punishing  evil  ministers,  were 
invited  to  become  the  confidential  advisers  of  the  Crown,  and 
were  solemnly  assured  by  Charles  that  he  would  take  no  step 
in  any  way  affecting  the  Lower  House  of  Parliament  without 
their  privity. 

Had  he  kept  this  promise,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the 
reaction  which  was  already  in  progress  would  very  soon  have 
become  quite  as  strong  as  the  most  respectable  Royalists  would 
have  desired.  Already  the  violent  members  of  the  opposition 
had  begun  to  despair  of  the  fortunes  of  their  party,  to  tremble 
for  their  own  safety,  and  to  talk  of  sell  g  their  estates  and 
emigrating  to  America.  That  the  fair  prospects  which  had 
begun  to  open-  before  the  King  were  suddenly  overcast,  that  his 
life  was  darkened  by  adversity,  and  at  length  shortened  by 
violence,  is  to  be  attributed  to  his  own  faithlessness  and  con- 
"tempt  of  law. 

The  truth  seems  to  be  that  he  detested  both  the  parties  into 
which  the  House  of  Commons  was  divided  :  nor  is  this  strange  ; 
for  in  both  those  parties  the  love  of  liberty  and  the  love  of  or- 
der were  mingled,  though  in  different  proportions.     The  advis* 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  107 

ers  whom  necessity  had  compelled  him  to  call  round  him  were 
by  no  means  after  his  own  heart.  They  had  joined  in  condemn- 
ing his  tyranny,  in  abridging  his  power,  and  in  punishing  his 
instruments.  They  were  now  indeed  prepared  to  defend  in  a 
strictly  legal  way  his  strictly  legal  prerogative ;  but  they  would 
have  recoiled  with  horror  from  the  thousfht  of  reviving  Went- 
worth's  projects  of  Thorough.  They  were,  therefore,  in  the 
King's  opinion,  traitors,  who  differed  only  in  the  degree  of  their 
seditious  malignity  from  Pym  and  Hampden. 

He  accordingly,  a  few  days  after  he  had  promised  the  chiefs 
of  the  constitutional  Royalists  that  no  step  of  importance  should 
be  taken  without  their  knowledge,  formed  a  resolution  the  most 
momentous  of  his  whole  life,  carefully  concealed  that  resolution 
from  them,  and  executed  it  in  a  manner  which  overwhelmed 
tliem  with  shame  and  dismay.  He  sent  the  Attorney  General 
to  impeach  iPym,  Hollis,  Hampden,  and  other  members  of  the 
House  of  Commons  of  high  treason  at  the  bar  of  the  Plouse  of 
Lords.  Not  content  with  this  flagrant  violation  of  the  Great 
Charter  and  of  the  uninterrupted  practice  of  centuries,  he  went 
in  person,  accompanied  by  armed  men,  to  seize  the  leaders  of 
the  opposition  within  the  walls  of  Parliament. 

The  attempt  failed.  The  accused  members  had  left  the 
House  a  short  time  before  Charles  entered  it.  A  sudden  and 
violent  revulsion^of  feeling,  both  in  the  Parliament  and  in  the 
country,  followed.  The  most  favourable  view  that  has  ever  been 
taken  of  the  King's  conduct  on  this  occasion  by  his  most  partial 
advocates  is  that  he  had  weakly  suffered  himself  to  be  hurried 
into  a  gross  indiscretion  by  the  evil  counsels  of  his  wife  and  of 
his  courtiers.  But  the  general  voice  loudly  charged  him  with 
far  deeper  guilt.  At  the  very  moment  at  which  his  subjects, 
after  a  long  estrangement  produced  by  his  maladministration, 
were  returning  to  him  with  feelings  of  confidence  and  affection, 
he  had  aimed  a  deadly  blow  at  all  their  dearest  rights,  at  the 
privileges  of  Parliament,  at  the  very  principle  of  trial  by  jury. 
He  had  shown  that  he  considered  opposition  to  his  arbi- 
trary designs  as  a  crime  to  be  expiated  only  by  blood. 
He  had  broken  faith,  not  only  with  his  Great  Council  and  with 


108  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

his  people,  but  with  his  own  adherents.  He  had  done  what,  but 
for  an  unforeseen  accident,  would  probably  have  produced  a 
bloody  conflict  round  the  Speaker's  chair.  Those  who  had  the 
chief  sway  in  the  Lower  House  now  felt  that  not  only  their 
power  and  popularity,  but  their  lands  and  their  necks,  were 
staked  on  the  event  of  the  struggle  in  which  they  were  engaged. 
The  flagging  zeal  of  the  party  opposed  to  the  court  revived  in  an 
instant.  During  the  night  which  followed  the  outrage  the  wdiole 
city  of  London  was  in  arms.  In  a  few  hours  the  roads  leading 
to  the  capital  were  covered  with  multitudes  of  yeomen  spurring 
hard  to  Westminster  with  the  badges  of  the  parliamentary  cause 
in  their  hats.  In  the  House  of  Commons  the  opposition  became 
at  once  irresistible,  and  carried,  by  more  than  two  votes  to  one, 
resolutions  of  unprecedented  violence.  Strong  bodies  of  the 
trainbands,  regularly  relieved,  mounted  guard  round  Westmin- 
ter  Hall.  The  gates  of  the  King's  palace  were  daily  besieged 
by  a  furious  multitude  whose  taunts  and  execrations  were  heard 
even  in  the  presence  chamber,  and  who  could  scarcely  be  kept 
out  of  the  royal  apartments  by  the  gentlemen  of  the  household. 
Had  Charles  remained  much  longer  in  his  stormy  capital,  it  is 
probable  that  the  Commons  would  have  fou;:d  a  plea  for  making 
him,  under  outward  forms  of  respect,  a  state  prisoner. 

He  quitted  London,  never  to  return  till  the  day  of  a  terrible 
and  memorable  reckoning  had  arrived.  A  negotiation  began 
wlxich  occupied  many  months.  Accusations  and  recriminations 
passed  backward  and  forward  between  the  contending  parties. 
All  accommodation  had  become  impossible.  The  sure  punish- 
ment which  waits  on  habitual  perfidy  had  at  length  overtaken  the 
King.  It  was  to  no  purpose  that  he  now  j^awned  his  royal  word, 
and  invoked  heaven  to  witness  the  sincerity  of  his  j^rofessions. 
The  distrust  with  which  his  adversaries  i-ejjarded  him  was  not 
to  be  removed  by  oaths  or  treaties.  They  were  convinced  that 
they  could  be  safe  only  when  he  was  utterly  helpless.  Their 
demand,  therefore,  was,  that  he  should  surrender,  not  only  those 
prerogatives  which  he  had  usurped  in  violation  of  ancient  laws 
and  of  his  own  recent  promises,  but  also  other  prerogatives 
which  the  English  Kings  had  always  possessed,  and  continue  to 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  109 

possess  at  the  present  day.  No  minister  must  be  appointed,  no 
peer  created,  without  the  consent  of  the  Houses.  Above  all, 
the  sovereign  must  resign  that  supreme  military  authority  which, 
from  time  beyond  all  memory,  had  appertained  to  the  regal 
office. 

That  Charles  would  comply  with  such  demands  while  he 
had  any  means  of  resistance,  was  not  to  be  expected.  Yet  it 
will  be  difficult  to  show  that  the  Houses  could  safely  have 
exacted  less.  They  were  truly  in  a  most  embarrassing  position. 
The  great  majority  of  the  nation  was  firmly  attached  to  heredi- 
tary monarchy.  Those  who  held  republican  opinions  were  as 
yet  few,  and  did  not  venture  to  speak  out.  It  was  therefore 
impossible  to  abolish  kingly  government.  Yet  it  was  plain  that 
no  confidence  could  be  placed  in  the  King.  It  would  have  been 
absurd  in  those  who  knew,  by  recent  proof,  that  he  was  bent  ou 
destroying  them,  to  content  themselves  with  presenting  to  him 
another  Petition  of  Right,  and  receiving  from  him  fresh  promises 
similar  to  those  which  he  had  repeatedly  made  and  broken. 
Nothing  but  the  want  of  an  army  had  prevented  him  from 
entirely  subverting  the  old  constitution  of  the  realm.  It  was 
now  necessary  to  levy  a  great  regular  army  for  the  conquest  of 
Ireland ;  and  it  would  therefore  have  been  mere  insanity  to 
leave  him  m  possession  of  that  plenitude  of  military  authority 
which  his  ancestors  had  enjoyed. 

When  a  country  is  in  the  situation  in  which  England  then  was, 
when  the  kingly  office  is  regarded  with  love  and  veneration,  but 
the  person  who  fills  that  ofiice  is  hated  and  distrusted,  it  should 
seem  that  the  course  which  ought  to  be  taken  is  obvious.  Tlie  dig- 
nity of  the  ofiice  should  be  preserved  :  the  person  should  be  discard- 
ed. Thus  .our  ancestors  acted  in  1399  and  in  1689.  Had  there 
been,  in  1642,  any  man  occupying  a  position  similar  to  that  which 
Henry  of  Lancaster  occupied  at  the  time  of  the  deposition  of 
Richard  the  Second,  and  which  William  of  Orange  occupied  at 
the  time  of  the  deposition  of  James  th  e  Second,  it  is  probable 
that  the  Houses  would  have  changed  the  dynasty,  and  would 
have  made  no  formal  change  in  the  constitution.  The  new 
King,  called  to  the  throne   by  their  choice,  and  dependent  on 


110  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND, 

their  support,  would  have  been  under  the  necessity  of  governing 
in  conformity  with  their  wishes  and  opinions.  But  there  was 
no  prince  of  the  blood  royal  in  the  parliamentary  party ;  and, 
though  that  party  contained  many  men  of  high  rank  and  many 
men  of  eminent  ability,  there  was  none  who  towered  so  conspic- 
uously above  the  rest  that  he  could  be  proposed  as  a  candidate 
for  the  crown.  As  there  was  to  be  a  King,  and  as  no  new  King 
could  be  found,  it  was  necessary  to  leave  the  regal  title  to 
Charles  Only  one  course,  therefore, was  left:  and  that  was  to 
disjoin  the  regal  title  from  the  regal  prerogatives. 

The  change  which  the  Houses  proposed  to  make  in  our  in- 
stitutions, though  it  seems  exorbitant,  when  distinctly  set  fort-h 
and  digested  into  articles  of  capitulation,  really  amounts  to 
little  more  than  the  change  which,  in  the  next  generation,  was 
effected  by  the  Revolution.  Tt  is  true  that,  at  the  Revolution, 
the  sovereign  was  not  deprived  1  y  law  of  the  jiower  of  naming 
his  ministers  :  but  it  is  equally  true  that,  since  the  Revolution, 
no  minister  has  been  able  to  retain  office  six  months  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  sense  of  the  House  of  Commons.  It  is  true  that  the 
sovereign  still  possesses  the  power  of  creating  peers,  and  the 
more  important  jjower  of  the  sword  :  but  it  is'equally  true  that 
in  the  exercise  of  these  powers  the  sovereign  has,  ever  since  the 
Revolution,  been  guided  by  advisers  who  possess  the  confidence 
of  the  representatives  of  the  nation.  In  fact,  the  leaders  of  the 
Roundhead  party  in  1642,  and  the  statesmen  who,  about  half  a 
century  later,  effected  the  Revolution,  had  exactly  the  same 
object  in  view.  That  object  was  to  terminate  the  contest 
between  the  Crown  and  the  Parliament,  by  giving  to  the  Par- 
liament a  supi'eme  control  over  the  executive  administration. 
The  statesmen  of  the  Revolution  effected  this  indirectly  by 
changing  the  dynasty.  The  Roundheads  of  1 642,  being  unable 
to  change  the  dynasty,  were  comj^elled  to  take  a  direct  course 
towards  their  end. 

We  cannot,  however,  wonder  that  the  demands  of  the  oppo- 
sition, importing  as  they  did  a  complete  and  formal  transfer  to 
the  Parliament  of  powers  which  had  always  belonged  to  the 
Crown,  should  have   shocked   that  great  party   of   which    the 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  Ill 

characteristics  are  respect  for  constitutional  authority  and  dread 
of  violent  innovation.  That  party  had  recently  been  in  hopes 
of  obtaining  by  peaceable  means  the  ascendency  in  the  House 
of  Commons  ;  but  every  such  hope  had  been  blighted.  The 
duplicity  of  Charles  liad  made  his  old  enemies  irreconcileable, 
had  driven  back  into  the  ranks  of  the  disaffected  a  crowd  of 
moderate  men  who  were  in  the  very  act  of  coming  over  to  his 
side,  and  had  so  cruelly  mortified  his  best  friends  that  they  had 
for  a  time  stood  aloof  in  silent  shame  and  resentment.  Now, 
however,  the  constitutional  Royalists  were  forced  to  make  their 
choice  between  two  dangers  ;  and  they  thought  it  their  duty 
rather  to  rally  round  a  prince  whose  past  conduct  they  con- 
demned, and  whose  word  inspired  them  with  little  confidence, 
ihan  to  suffer  thevt^egal  office  to  be  degraded,  and  the  polity  of 
the  realm  to  be  entirely  remodelled.  With  such  feelings,  many 
men  whose  virtues  and  abilities  would  have  done  honour  to  any 
cause,  ranged  themselves  on  the  side  of  the  King. 

In  August  1642  the  sword  was  at  length  drawn  ;  and  soon, 
in  almost  every  shire  of  the  kingdom,  two  hostile  factions 
appeared  in  arms  against  each  other.  It  is  not  easy  to  say 
which  of  the  contending  parties  was  at  first  the  more  formid- 
able. The  Houses  commanded  London  and  the  counties  round 
London,  the  fleet,  the  navigation  of  the  Thames,  and  most  of 
the  large  towns  and  seaports.  They  had  at  their  disposal 
almost  all  the  military  stores  of  the  kingdom,  and  were  able  to 
raise  duties,  both  on  goods  imported  from  foreign  countries,  and 
on  some  important  products  of  domestic  industry.  The  King 
was  ill  provided  with  artillery  and  ammunition.  The  taxes 
which  he  laid  on  the  rural  districts  occupied  by  his  troops  jjro- 
duced,  it  is  probable,  a  sum  far  less  than  that  which  the  Parlia- 
ment drew  from  the  city  of  London  alone.  He  relied,  indeed, 
chiefly,  for  pecuniary  aid,  on  the  munificence  of  his  opulent 
adherents.  Many  of  these  mortgaged  their  land,  pawned  their 
jewels,  and  broke  up  their  silver  chargers  and  christening 
bowls,  in  order  to  assist  him.  But  experience  has  fully  proved 
that  the  voluntary  liberality  of  individuals,  even  in  times  of  the 
greatest  excitement,  is  a  poor  financial  resource  when  compared 


112  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

with   severe   and   methodical   taxation,  which   presses   on  the 
willing  and  unwilling  alike. 

Charles,  however,  had  one  advantage,  which,  if  he  had  used 
it  well,  would  have  more  than  compensated  for  the  want  of 
stores  and  money,  and  which,  notwithstanding  his  mismanage- 
ment, gave  him,  during  some  months,  a  superiority  in  the  war. 
His  troops  at  first  fought  much  better  than  those  of  the  Parlia- 
■  ment.  Both  armies,  it  is  true,  were  almost  entirely  composed 
of  men  who  had  never  seen  a  field  of  battle.  Nevertheless,  the 
difference  was  great.  The  Parliamentary  ranks  were  filled 
with  hirelings  whom  want  and  idleness  had  induced  to  enlist. 
Hampden's  regiment  was  regarded  as  one  of  the  best;  and  even 
Hampden's  regiment  was  described  by  Cromwell  as  a  mere 
rabble  of  tapsters  and  serving  men  out  of  'place.  The  royal 
army,  on  the  other  hand,  consisted  in  great  part  of  gentlemen, 
high  spirited,  ardent,  accustomed  to  consider  dishonour  as  more 
terrible  than  death,  accustomed  to  fencing,  to  the  use  of  fire 
arms,  to  bold  riding,  and  to  manly  and  perilous  sport,  which 
has  been  well  called  the  image  of  war.  Such  gentlemen, 
mounted  on  their  favourite  horses,  and  commanding  little  bands 
composed  of  their  younger  brothers,  grooms,  gamekeepers,  and 
huntsmen,  were,  from  the  very  first  day  on  whicli  they  took  the 
field,  qualified  to  play  their  part  with  credit  in  a  skirmish.  The 
steadiness,  the  prompt  obedience,  the  mechanical  precision  of 
movement,  which  are  characteristic  of  the  regular  soldier,  these 
gallant  volunteers  never  attained.  But  they  were  at  first 
opposed  to  enemies  as  undisciplined  as  themselves,  and  far  less 
active,  athletic,  and  daring.  For  a  time,  therefore,  the  Cava- 
liers were  successful  in  almost  every  encounter. 

The  Houses  had  also  been  unfortunate  in  the  choice  of  a 
general.  The  rank  and  wealth  of  the  Earl  of  Essex  made  him 
one  of  the  most  important  members  of  the  parliamentary  party. 
He  had  borne  arms  on  the  Continent  with  credit,  and,  when 
the  war  began,  had  as  high  a  military  reputation  as  any  man  in 
the  country.  Bu*:  it  soon  appeared  that  he  was  unfit  for  the 
post  of  Commander  in  Chief.  He  had  little  energy  and  no 
originality.     The   methodical  tactics  which  he   had  learned  in 


BEFORE   THE   RESTORATION.  i:3 

tte  war  of  the  Palatinate  did  not  save  him  from  the  disiirate 
of  being  surjDrised  and  baffled  by  such  a  Captain  as  Rupert, 
who  could  claim  no  higher  fame  than  that  of  an  enterprising 
partisan. 

Nor  were  the  officers  who  held  the  chief  commissions  under 
Essex  qualified  to  supply  what  was  wanting  in  him.  For  this, 
indeed,  the  Houses  are  scarcely  to  be  blamed.  In  a  country 
which  had  not,  within  the  memory  of  the  oldest  person  livinr, 
made  war  on  a  great  scale  by  land,  generals  of  tried  skill  an,! 
valour  were  not  to  be  found.  It  was  necessary,  therefore,  ia 
the  first  instance,  to  trust  untried  men  ;  and  the  preference  was 
naturally  given  to  men  distinguished  either  by  their  station,  or 
by  the  abilities  which  they  had  displayed  in  Parliament.  In 
scarcely  a  single  instance,  however,  was  the  selection  fortunate. 
Neither  the  grandees  nor  the  orators  proved  good  soldiers.  The 
Earl  of  Stamford,  one  of  the  greatest  nobles  of  England,  was 
routed  by  the  Royalists  at  Stratton.  Nathaniel  Fiennes, 
inferior  to  none  of  his  contemporaries  in  talents  for  civil  busi- 
ness, disgraced  himself  by  the  pusillanimous  surrender  of  Bristol 
Indeed,  of  all  the  statesmen  who  at  this  juncture  accepted  liiglj 
military  commands,  Hampden  alone  appears  to  have  carried 
into  the  camp  the  capacity  and  strength  of  mind  wliich  had 
made  him  eminent  in  politics. 

When  the  war  had  lasted  a  year,  the  advantage  was  decid- 
edly with  the  Royalists.  They  were  victorious,  both  in  the 
western  and  in  the  northern  counties.  They  had  wrested 
Bristol,  the  second  city  in  the  iiingdom,  from  the  Parliament. 
They  had  won  several  battles,  and  had  not  sustained  a  single 
serious  or  ignominious  defeat.  Among  the  Roundheads  adver- 
sity had  begun  to  produce  dissension  and  discontent.  Tlic 
Parliament  was  kept  in  alarm,  sometimes  by  plots,  and  son.e- 
times  by  riots.  It  was  thought  necessary  to  fortify  London 
against  the  royal  army,  and  to  hang  some  disaffected  citizeaj 
at  their  own  doors.  Several  of  the  most  distinguished  pccri 
who  had  hitherto  remained  at  Westminster  fled  to  the  court  at 
Oxford  ;  nor  can  it  be  doubted  tliat,  if  the  operations  of  the 
Cavaliers  had,  at  this  season,  been  directed  by  a  sagacious  and 

8 


114  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND, 

powerful   mina,  Charles  would  soon  have  marched  iii    triumjjh 
to  Whitehall. 

But  the  King  suffered  the  auspicious  moment  to  pass  away; 
and  it  never  returned.  In  August  1643  he  sate  down  before 
the  city  of  Gloucester.  That  city  was  defended  by  the  inhab- 
itants and  by  the  garrison,  with  a  determination  such  as  had 
not,  since  the  commencement  of  the  war,  been  shown  by  the 
adherents  of  the  Parliament.  The  emulation  of  London  was 
excited.  The  trainbands  of  the  City  volunteered  to  march 
wherever  their  services  might  be  recpiired.  A  great  force  was 
speedily  collected,  and  began  to  move  westward.  The  siege  of 
Gloucester  was  raised  :  the  Royalists  in  every  part  of  the  king- 
dom were  disheartened:  the  spirit  of  the  iiarliamentary  party  re- 
vived :  and  the  apostate  Lords,  who  had  lately  fled  from  West- 
minster to  Oxford,  hastened  back  from  Oxford  to  Westminster. 

And  now  a  new  and  alarming  class  of  symptoms  began  to 
appear  in  the  distempered  body  politic.  There  had  been,  from 
the  first,  in  the  parliamentary  party,  some  men  whose  m.inds 
were  set  on  objects  from  which  the  majority  of  that  party 
would  have  shrunk  with  horror.  These  men  were,  in  religion. 
Independents.  They  conceived  that  every  Christian  congrega- 
tion had,  under  Christ,  supreme  jurisdiction  in  things  spiritual ; 
that  appeals  to  provincial  and  national  synods  were  scarcely 
less  unscriptural  than  appeals  to  the  Court  of  Arches,  or  to  the 
Vatican  ;  and  that  Popery,  Prelacy,  and  Presbyterianism  were 
merely  three  forms  of  one  great  apostasy.  In  politics,  the 
Independents  were,  to  use  the  phrase  of  their  time,  root  and 
branch  men,  of,  to  use  the  kindred  phrase  of  our  own  time, 
radicals.  Not  content  Avitli  limiting  the  power  of  the  monarch, 
they  were  desirous  to  erect  a  commonwealth  on  the  ruins  of  the 
old  English  polity.  At  first  they  had  been  inconsiderable,  both 
in  numbers  and  in  weight ;  but  before  the  war  had  lasted  two 
years  they  became,  not  indeed  the  largest,  but  the  most  powerful 
faction  in  the  country.  Some  of  the  old  parliamentary  leaders 
had  been  removed  by  death  ;  and  others  had  forfeited  the 
public  confidence.  Pym  had  been  borne,  with  princely  honours, 
to  a  grave  among  the  Plantagenets.     Hampden   had  fallen,  as 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  115 

became  hira,  wnile  vainly  endeavouring,  by  his  hei'oic  example, 
to  inspire  his  followers  with  courage  to  face  the  fiery  cavalry 
of  Rupert.  Bedford  had  been  untrue  to  the  cause.  Northum- 
berland was  known  to  be  lukewarm.  Essex  and  his  lieutenants 
had  shown  little  vigour  and  ability  in  the  conduct  of  military 
operations.  At  such  a  conjuncture  it  was  that  the  Independent 
party,  ardent,  resolute,  and  uncompromising,  began  to  raise  its 
head,  both  in  the  camp  and  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

The  soul  of  that  party  was  Oliver  Cromwell.  Bred  to 
peaceful  occupations,  he  had,  at  more  than  forty  ^ears  of  age, 
accepted  a  commission  in  the  parliamentary  army.  No  sooner 
had  he  become  a  solaier  than  he  discerned,  with  the  keen  glance 
of  genius,  what  Essex,  and  men  like  Essex,  with  all  their 
experience,  were  unable  to  perceive.  He  saw  precisely  where 
the  strength  of  the  Royalists  lay,  and  by  what  means  alone  that 
strength  could  be  overpowered.  He  saw  that  it  was  necessary 
to  reconstruct  the  army  of  the  Parliament.  He  saw  also  that 
there  were  abundant  and  excellent  materials  for  the  purj^ose, 
materials  less  showy,  indeed,  but  more  solid,  than  those  of 
which  the  gallant  squadrons  of  the  King  were  composed.  It 
was  necessary  to  look  for  recruits  who  were  not  mere  merce- 
naries, for  recruits  of  decent  station  and  grave  character,  fearing 
God  and  zealous  for  public  liberty.  With  such  men  he  filled 
his  own  regiment,  and,  while  he  subjected  them  to  a  discipline 
more  rigid  than  had  ever  before  been  known  in  England,  he 
administered  to  their  intellectual  and  moral  nat  e  stimulants 
of  fearful  potency. 

The  events  of  the  year  1644  fully  proved  the  superiority 
of  his  abilities.  In  the  south,  where  Essex  held  the  command, 
the  parliamentary  forces  underwent  a  succession  of  sliameful 
disasters ;  but  in  the  north  the  victory  of  Marston  Moor  fully 
compensated  for  all  that  had  been  lost  elsewhere.  That  vic- 
tory was  not  a  more  serious  blow  to  the  Royalists  than  to  the 
party  which  had  hitherto  been  dominant  at  Westminster  ;  for 
it  was  notorious  that  the  day,  disgracefully  lost  by  the  Presby- 
terians, had  been  retrieved  by  the  energy  of  Cromwell,  and  by 
the  steady  valour  of  the  warriors  whom  he  had  trained. 


116  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

These  events  produced  the  Selfdenyiug  Ordinance  and  the 
new  model  of  the  army.  Under  decorous  pretexts,  and  with 
every  mark  of  respect,  Essex  and  most  of  those  who  had  held 
high  posts  under  him  were  removed ;  and  the  conduct  of  the 
war  was  intrusted  to  very  different  hands.  Fairfax,  a  brave 
soldier,  but  of  mean  understanding  and  irresolute  temper,  was 
the  nominal  Lord  General  of  the  forces  ;  but  Cromwell  was 
their  real  head. 

Cromwell  made  haste  to  organise  the  whole  army  on  the 
same  principles  on  which  he  had  organised  his  own  regiment. 
As  soon  as  this  process  was  complete,  the  event  of  the  war  was 
decided.  The  Cavaliers  had  now  to  encounter  natural  courage 
equal  to  their  own,  enthusiasm  stronger  than  their  own,  and 
discipline  such  as  was  utterly  wanting  to  them.  It  soon  became 
a  proverb  that  the  soldiers  of  Fairfax  and  Cromwell  were  men 
of  a  different  breed  from  the  soldiers  of  Essex.  At  Naseby 
took  place  the  fti'st  great  encounter  between  the  Royalists  and 
the  remodelled  army  of  the  Houses.  The  victory  of  the  Round- 
heads was  complete  and  decisive.  It  was  followed  by  other 
triumphs  in  rapid  succession.  In  a  few  months  the  authority 
of  the  Parliament  was  fully  established  over  the  whole  king- 
dom. Charles  fled  to  the  Scots,  and  was  by  them,  in  a  manner 
which  did  not  much  exalt  their  national  character,  delivered  up 
to  his  English  subjects. 

While  the  eveiiD  of  the  war  was  still  doubtful,  the  Houses 
had  put  the  Primate  to  death,  had  interdicted,  within  the  sphere 
of  their  authority,  the  use  of  the  Liturgy,  and  had  required  all 
men  to  subscribe  that  renowned  instrument  known  by  the  name 
of  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant.  Covenanting  woi-k,  as 
it  was  called,  went  on  fast.  Hundreds  of  thousands  affixed 
their  names  to  the  rolls,  and,  with  hands  lifted  up  towards 
heaven,  swore  to  endeavour,  without  respect  of  persons,  the  ex- 
tirpation of  Popery  and  Prelacy,  heresy  and  schism,  and  to 
bring  to  public  trial  and  condign  punishment  all  who  should 
hinder  the  reformation  of  religion.  When  the  struggle  was 
over,  the  work  of  innovation  and  revenge  was  pushed  on  with 
increased  ardour.     The  ecclesiastical  polity  of  the  kingdom  was 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  117 

remotlelled.  Most  of  the  old  clergy  were  ejected  from  their 
benefices.  Fines,  often  of  ruinous  amount,  were  laid  on  the 
Royalists,  already  impoverished  by  large  aids  furnished  to  the 
King.  Many  estates  were  confiscated.  Many  proscribed  Cav- 
aliers found  it  exfjedient  to  purchase,  at  an  enormous  cost,  the 
protection  of  eminent  members  of  the  victorious  party.  Large 
domains,  belonging  to  the  crown,  to  the  bishops,  and  to  the 
chapters,  were  seized,  and  either  granted  away  or  put  up  to 
auction.  "In  consequence  these  spoliations,  a  great  part  of 
the  soil  of  England  was  at  once  offered  for  sale.  As  money 
was  scarce,  as  the  market  was  glutted,  as  the  title  was  insecure, 
and  as  the  awe  inspired  by  powerful  bidders  prevented  free 
competition,  the  prices  were  often  merely  nominal.  Thus  many 
old  and  honourable  families  disappeared  and  were  heard  of  no 
more ;  and  many  new  men  rose  rapidly  to  affluence. 

But,  while  the  Houses  were  employing  their  authority  thus, 
it  suddenly  passed  out  of  their  hands.  It  had  been  obtained  by 
calling  into  existence  a  power  which  could  not  be  controlled. 
In  the  summer  of  1647,  about  twelve  months  after  the  last  for- 
tress of  the  Cavaliers  had  submitted  to  the  Parliament,  the 
Parliament  was  compelled  to  submit  to  its  own  soldiers. 

Thirteen  years  followed,  during  which  England  was,  under 
various  names  and  forms,  really  governed  by  the  sword.  Never 
before  that  time,  or  since  that  time,  was  the  civil  power  in  our 
country  subjected  to  military  dictation. 

The  army  which  now  became  supreme  in  the  state  was  an 
army  very  different  from  any  that  has  since  been  seen  among 
us.  At  present  the  pay  of  the  common  soldier  is  not  such  as 
can  seduce  any  but  the  humblest  class  of  English  labourers 
from  their  calling.  A  barrier  almost  impassable  separates  him 
from  the  commissioned  officer.  The  great  majority  of  those 
who  rise  high  in  the  service  rise  by  purchase.  So  numerous 
and  extensive  are  the  remote  dependencies  of  England,  that 
every  man  who  enlists  in  the  line  must  expect  to  pass  many 
years  in  exile,  and  some  years  in  climates  unfavourable  to  the 
health  and  vigour  of  the  European  race.  The  army  of  the 
Long  Parliament  was  raised  for  home  service.     The  pay  of 


'» 


118  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  private  soldier  was  much  above  the  wages  earned  by  the 
great  body  of  the  people ;  and,  if  he  distinguished  himself  by 
intelligence  and  courage,  he  might  hope  to  attain  high  com- 
mands. The  ranks  were  accordingly  composed  of  persons 
superior  in  station  and  education  to  the  multitude.  These  per- 
sons, sober,  moral,  diligent,  and  accustomed  to  reflect,  had  been 
induced  to  take  up  arms,  not  by  the  pressure  of  want,  not  by 
the  love  of  novelty  and  license,  not  by  the  arts  of  recruiting 
officers,  but  by  religious  and  political  zeal,  mingled  with  the 
desire  of  distinction  and  promotion.  The  boast  of  the  soldiers, 
as  we  find  it  recorded  in  their  solemn  resolutions,  was  that  they 
had  not  been  forced  into  the  service,  nor  had  enlisted  chiefly 
for  the  sake  of  lucre,  that  they  were  no  janissaries,  but  freeborn 
Englishmen,  who  had,  of  their  own  accord,  put  their  lives  in 
jeopardy  for  the  liberties  and  religion  of  England,  and  whose 
right  and  duty  it  was  to  watch  over  the  welfare  of  the  nation 
which  they  had  saved. 

A  force  thus  composed  might,  without  injury  to  its  eflliciency, 
be  indulged  in  some  liberties  fvhich,  if  allowed  to  any  other 
troops,  would  have  proved  subversive  of  all  discipline.  In  gen- 
eral, soldiers  who  should  form  themselves  into  political  clubs, 
elect  delegates,  and  pass  resolutions  on  high  questions  of  state, 
would  soon  break  loose  from  all  control,  would  cease  to  form  an 
army,  and  would  become  the  worst  and  most  dangerous  of  mobs. 
Nor  would  it  be  safe,  in  our  time,  to  tolerate  in  any  regiment 
religious  meetings,  at  which  a  corporal  versed  in  Scripture 
should  lead  the  devotions  of  his  less  gifted  colonel,  and  admon- 
ish a  backsliding  major.  But  such  was  the  intelligence,  the 
gravity,  and  the  selfcommand  of  the  warriors  whom  Cromwell 
had  trained,  that  in  their  camp  a  political  organisation  and  a 
religious  organisation  could  exist  without  destroying  military 
organisation.  The  same  men,  who,  off  duty,  were  noted  as 
demagogues  and  field  preachers,  were  distinguished  by  steadi- 
ness, by  the  spirit  of  order,  and  by  prompt  obedience  on  watch; 
on  drill,  and  on  the  field  of  battle. 

In  war  this  strange  force  was  irresistible.  The  stubborn 
courage  characteristic  of  the  English  people  was,  by  the  system 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  119 

of  Cromwell,  at  once  regulated  and  stimulated.  Other  leaders 
have  maintained  orders  as  strict.  Other  leaders  have  inspired 
their  followers  with  zeal  as  ardent.  But  in  his  camp  alone  the 
most  rigid  discipline  was  found  in  company  with  the  fiercest  en- 
thusiasm. His  troops  moved  to  victory  with  the  precision  of 
machines,  while  burning  with  the  wildest  fanaticism  of  Crusad- 
ers. From  the  time  when  the  army  was  remodelled  to  the  time 
when  it  was  disbanded,  it  never  found,  either  in  the  British 
islands  or  on  the  Continent,  an  enemy  who  could  stand  its 
onset.  In  England,  Scotland,  Ireland,  Flanders,  the  Puritan 
warriors,  often  surrounded  by  dilFiculties,  sometmies  contending 
against  threefold  odds,  not  only  never  failed  to  conquer,  but 
never  failed  to  destroy  and  break  in  pieces  whatever  force  was 
opposed  to  them.  They  at  length  came  to  regard  the  day  of 
battle  as  a  day  of  certain  triumph,  and  marched  against  the 
most  renowned  battalions  of  Europe  with  disdainful  confidence. 
Turenne  was  startled  by  the  shout  of  stern  exultation  with 
which  hie  English  allies  advanced  to  the  combat,  and  expressed 
the  delight  of  a  true  soldier,  when  he  learned  that  it  was  ever 
the  fashion  of  Cromwell's  pikemen  to  rejoice  greatly  when  they 
beheld  the  enemy ;  and  the  banished  Cavaliers  felt  an  emotion 
of  national  pride,  when  they  saw  a  brigade  of  their  countrymen, 
outnumbered  by  foes  and  abandoned  by  friends,  drive  before  it 
in  headlong  rout  the  finest  infantry  of  Spain,  and  force  a  pas- 
sage into  a  counterscarp  which  had  just  been  pronounced  im- 
pregnable by  the  ablest  of  the  Marshals  of  France. 

But  that  which  chiefly  distinguished  the  army  of  Cromwell 
from  other  armies  was  the  austere  morality  and  the  fear  of  God 
which  pervaded  all  ranks.  It  is  acknowledged  by  the  most 
zealous  Royalists  that,  in  that  singular  camp,  no  oath  was  heard, 
no  drunkenness  or  gambling  was  seen,  and  that,  during  the  long 
dominion  of  the  soldiery,  the  property  of  the  peaceable  citizen 
and  the  honour  of  woman  were  held  sacred.  If  outrages  were 
committed,  they  were  outrages  of  a  very  different  kind  from 
those  of  which  a  victorious  army  is  generally  guilty.  No  ser- 
vant girl  comj)lained  of  the  rough  gallantry  of  the  redcoats. 
Not  an  ounce  of  plate  was  taken  from  the  shops  of  the  goldsmiths. 


120  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

But  a  Pelagian  sermon,  or  a  window  on  which  the  Virgin  and 
Child  were  painted,  j^roduced  in  tlie  Puritan  ranks  an  excite- 
ment which  it  required  the  utmost  exertions  of  the  officers  to 
quell.  One  of  Cromwell's  chief  difficulties  was  to  restrain  his 
musketeers  and  dragoons  from  invading  by  main  force  the  pul- 
pits of  ministers  whose  discourses,  to  use  the  language  of  that 
time,  were  not  savoury  ;  and  too  many  of  our  cathedrals  still 
bear  the  marks  of  the  hatred  with  which  those  stern  spirits  re- 
garded every  vestige  of  Popery. 

To  keep  down  the  English  people  was  no  light  task  even 
for  that  army.  No  sooner  was  the  first  pressure  of  military 
tyranny  felt,  than  the  nation,  unbroken  to  such  servitude,  began 
to  struggle  fiercely.  Insurrections  broke  out  even  in  those 
counties  which,  during  the  recent  war,  had  been  the  most  sub- 
missive to  the  Parliament.  Indeed,  the  Parliament  itself  ab- 
horred its  old  defenders  niore  than  its  old  enemies,  and  was  der 
sirous  to  come  to  terms  of  accommodation  with  Charles  at  the 
expense  of  the  troops.  In  Scotland  at  the  same  time,  a  coali- 
tion was  formed  between  the  Royalists  and  a  large  body  of 
Presbyterians  who  regarded  the  doctrines  of  the  Independents 
tvith  detestation.  At  length  the  storm  burst.  There  were  ris- 
ings in  Norfolk,  Suffolk,  Essex,  Kent,  "Wales.  The  fleet  in  the 
Thames  suddenly  hoisted  the  royal  colours,  stood  out  to  sea,  and 
menaced  the  southern  coast.  A  great  Scottish  force  crossed  the 
frontier  and  advanced  into  Lancashire.  It  misht  well  be  sus- 
pected  that  these  movements  were  contemplated  with  secret  com- 
placency by  a  majority  both  of  the  Lords  and  of  the  Commons. 

But  the  yoke  of  the  army  was  not  to  be  so  shaken  off. 
While  Fairfax  suppressed  the  risings  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  capital,  Oliver  routed  the  Welsh  insurgents,  and,  leaving 
their  castles  in  ruins,  marched  against  the  Scots.  His  troops 
were  few,  when  compared  with  the  invaders  ;  but  he  was  little 
in  the  habit  of  counting  his  enemies.  The  Scottish  army  was 
utterly  destroyed.  A  change  in  the  Scottish  government  fol- 
lowed. An  administration,  hostile  to  the  King,  was  formed  at 
Edinburgh  ;  and  Cromwell,  more  than  ever  the  darling  of  his 
soldiers,  returned  in  triumph  to  Loudon. 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  121 

And  now  a  design,  to  which,  at  the  commencement  of  the 
civil  war,  no  man  would  have  dared  to  allude,  and  which  was 
not  less  inconsistent  with  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant 
than  with  the  old  law  of  England,  began  to  take  a  distinct  form. 
The  austere  warriors  who  ruled  the  nation  had,  during  some 
months,  meditated  a  fearful  vengeance  on  the  captive  King. 
When  and  how  the  scheme  originated  ;  whether  it  spread  from 
the  general  to  the  ranks,  or  from  the  ranks  to  the  general  ; 
whether  it  is  to  be  ascribed  to  policy  using  fanaticism  as  a  tool, 
or  to  fanaticism  bearing  down  policy  with  headlong  impulse,  are 
questions  which,  even  at  this  day,  cannot  be  answered  with  per- 
fect confidence.  It  seems,  however,  on  the  whole,  probable  that 
he  who  seemed  to  lead  was  really  forced  to  follow,  and  that,  on 
this  occasion,  as  on  another  great  occasion  a  few  years  later,  he 
sacrificed  his  own  judgment  and  his  own  inclinations  to  the 
wishes  of  the  army.  For  the  power  which  he  had  called  into 
existence  was  a  power  which  even  he  could  not  always  control ; 
and,  that  he  might  ordinarily  command,  it  was  necessary  that 
he  should  sometimes  obey.  He  publicly  protested  that  he  was 
no  mover  in  the  matter,  that  the  first  steps  had  been  taken  with- 
out his  privity,  that  he  could  not  advise  the  Parliament  to  strike 
the  blow,  but  that  he  submitted  his  own  feelings  to  the  force  of 
circumstances  which  seemed  to  him  to  indicate  the  purposes  of 
Providence.  It  Ji  is  been  the  fashion  to  consider  these  profes- 
sions as  instances  of  the  hypocrisy  which  is  vulgarly  imputed  to 
him.  But  even  those  who  pronounce  him  a  hypocrite  will 
scarcely  venture  to  call  him  a  fool.  Tliey  are  therefore  bound 
to  show  that  he  had  some  purpose  to  serve  by  secretly  stimula- 
ting the  army  to  take  that  course  which  he  did  not  venture 
openly  to  recommend.  It  would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that  he 
who  was  never  by  his  respectable  enemies  represented  as  wan- 
tonly cruel  or  implacably  vindictive,  would  have  taken  the  most 
important  step  of  his  life  under  the  influence  of  mere  malevolence. 
He  was  far  too  wise  a  man  not  to  know,  when  he  consented  to 
shed  that  august  blood,  that  he  was  doing  a  deed  which  was 
inexpiable,  and  which  would  move  the  grief  and  horror,  not 
only  of  the  Royalists,  but  of  nine  tenths  of  those  who  had  stood 


122  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

by  the  Parliament.  Whatever  visions  may  have  deluded  others, 
he  was  assuredly  dreaming  neither  of  a  republic  on  the  antique 
pattern,  nor  of  the  millennial  reign  of  the  Saints.  If  he  already 
aspired  to  be  himself  the  founder  of  a  new  dynasty,  it  was  plain 
that  Charles  the  First  was  a  less  formidable  competitor  than 
Charles  the  Second  would  be.  At  the  moment  of  the  death  of 
Charles  the  First  the  loyalty  of  every  Cavalier  would  be  trans- 
ferred, unimpaired,  to  Charles  the  Second.  Charles  the  First 
was  a  captive  :  Charles  the  Second  would  be  at  liberty.  Charles 
the  First  was  an  object  of  suspicion  and  dislike  to  a  large  pro> 
portion  of  those  who  yet  shuddered  at  the  thought  of  slaying 
him  :  Charles  the  Second  would  excite  all  the  interest  which 
belongs  lo  distressed  youth  and  innocence.  It  is  impossible  to 
believe  that  considerations  so  obvious,  and  so  important,  es- 
caped the  most'profound  politician  of  that  age.  The  truth  is 
that  Cromwell  had,  at  one  time,  meant  to  mediate  between  the 
throne  and  the  Parliament,  and  fco  reorganise  the  distracted 
State  by  the  power  of  the  sword,  imder  the  sanction  of  the  royal 
name.  In  this  design  he  persisted  till  he  was  compelled  to 
abandon  it  by  the  refractory  temper  of  the  soldiers,  and  by  the 
incurable  duplicity  of  the  King.  A  party  in  the  camp  began  to 
clamour  for  the  head  of  the  traitor,  who  was  for  treating  with 
Agag.  Conspiracies  were  formed.  Threats  of  impeachment 
were  loudly  uttered.  A  mutiny  broke  out,  which  all  the  vigour 
and  resolution  of  Oliver  could  hardly  quell.  And  though,  by  a 
judicious  mixture  of  severity  and  kindness,  he  succeeded  in 
restoring  order,  he  saw  that  it  would  be  in  the  highest  degree  dif- 
ficult and  perilous  to  contend  against  the  rage  of  warriors,  who 
regarded  the  fallen  tyrant  as  their  foe,  and  as  the  foe  of  their 
God.  At  the  same  time  it  became  more  evident  than  ever  that 
the  King  could  not  be  trusted.  The  vices  of  Charles  had  grown 
upon  him.  They  were,  indeed,  vices  which  difficulties  and  per- 
plexities generally  bring  out  in  the  strongest  light.  Cunning  is 
the  natural  defence  of  the  weak.  A  prince,  therefore,  who  is 
habitually  a  deceiver  when  at  the  height  of  power,  is  not  likely 
to  learn  frankness  in  the  midst  of  embarrassments  and  distresses. 
Charles  was  not  only  a  most  unscrupulous  but  a  most  unlucky 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  123 

dissembler.  There  never  was  a  politician  to  whom  so  mahy 
frauds  and  falsehoods  were  brought  home  by  undeniable  evidence. 
He  publicly  recognised  the  Houses  at  Westminster  as  a  legal 
Parliament,  and,  at  the  same  time,  made  a  private  minute  in 
council  declaring  the  recognition  null.  He  publicly  disclaimed 
■all  thought  of  calling  in  foreign  aid  against  his  peo^jle  :  he  pri- 
vately solicited  aid  from  France,  from  Denmark,  and  from  Lor- 
raine. He  publicly  denied  that  he  employed  Papists  :  at  the 
same  time  he  privately  sent  to  his  generals  directions  to  employ 
every  Papist  that  would  serve.  He  publicly  took  the  sacrament 
at  Oxford,  as  a  pledge  that  he  never  would  even  connive  at 
Popery.  He  privately  assured  h*is  wife,  that  he  intended  to 
tolerate  Popery  in  England  ;  and  he  authorised  Lord  Glamor- 
gan to  promise  that  Popery  should  be  established  in  Ireland. 
Then  he  attempted  to  clear  himself  at  his  agent's  expense. 
Glamorgan  received,  in  the  Royal  handwriting,  reprimands 
hitended  to  be  read  by  others,  and  eulogies  which  were  to  be  seen 
only  by  himself.  To  such  an  extent,  indeed,  had  insincerity 
now  tainted  the  King's  whole  nature,  that  his  most  devoted 
friends  could  not  refrain  from  complaining  to  each  other^  with 
bitter  grief  and  shame,  of  his  crooked  politics.  His  defeats, 
they  said,  gave  them  less  pain  than  his  intrigues.  Since  he  had 
been  a  prisoner,  there  was  no  section  of  the  victorious  party 
-lyhich  had  not  been  the  object  both  of  his  flatteries  and  of  his 
machinations  ;  but  never  was  he  more  unfortunate  than  when 
he  attempted  at  once  to  cajole  and  to  undermine  Cromwell. 

Cromwell  had  to  determine  whether  he  would  put  to  hazard 
the  attachment  of  his  party,  the  attachment  of  his  army,  his  own 
greatness,  nay  his  own  life,  in  an  attempt  which  would  probably 
have  been  vain,  to  save  a  prince  whom  no  engagement  could 
bind.  With  many  struggles  and  misgivings,  and  probably  not 
without  many  prayers,  the  decision  was  made.  Charles  was 
left  to  his  fate.  The  military  saints  resolved  that,  in  defiance 
of  the  old  laws  of  the  realm,  and  of  the  almost  universal  senti- 
ment of  the  nation,  the  King  should  expiate  his  crimes  with  his 
blood.  He  for  a  time  expected  a  death  lik^  that  of  his  unhappy 
predecessors,  Edward  the  Second  and  Richard  the  Second.    But 


224  J^ISTORT    OF    ENGLAND. 

h'fe  was  in  no  danger  of  such  treason.  Those  who  had  him  in 
their  gripe  were  not  midnight  slabbers.  What  they  did  they 
did  in  order  thai  it  might  be  a  spectacle  to  heaven  and  earth, 
and  that  it  might  be  held  in  everlasting  remembrance.  They 
enjoyed  keenly  the  very  scandal  which  they  gave.  That  the 
ancient  constitution  and  the  public  opinion  of  England  were 
directly  opposed  to  regicide  made  i-egicide  seem  strangely  fascina- 
ting to  a  party  bent  on  effecting  a,  complete  political  and  social 
revolution.  In  order  to  accomplish  their  purpose,  it  was  neces^ 
sary  that  they  should  first  break  in  pieces  every  part  of  the 
machinery  df  the  government ;  and  this  necessity  was  rather 
agreeable  than  painful  to  them.  The  Commons  passed  a  vote 
tending  to  accommodation  with  the  King.  The  soldiers  ex- 
cluded the  majority  by  force.  The  Lords  unanimously  rejected 
the  proposition  that  the  King  should  be  brought  to  trial.  Their 
house  was  instantly  closed.  No  court,  known  to  the  law,  would 
take  on  itself  the  office  of  judging  the  fountain  of  justice.  A 
revolutionary  tribunal  was  created.  That  tribunal  pronounced 
Charles  a  tyrant,  a  traitor,  a  murderer,  and  a  ^mblic  enemy  ; 
and  his  head  was  severed  from  his  shoulders,  before  thousands 
of  spectators,  in  front  of  the  banqueting  hall  of  his  own  palace. 
In  no  long  time  it  became  manifest  that  those  political  and 
religious  zealots,  to  whom  this  deed  is  to  be  ascribed,  had 
committed,  not  only  a  crime,  but  an  error.  They  had  given  to 
a  prince,  hitherto  known  to  his  people  chiefly  by  his  faults,  an 
opportunity  of  displaying,  on  a  great  theatre,  before  the  eyes  of 
all  nations  and  all  ages,  some  qualities  which  irresistibly  call 
forth  the  admiration  and  love  of  mankind,  the  high  spirit  of  a 
gallant  gentleman,  the  patience  and  meekness  of  a  penitent 
Christian.  Nay,  they  had  so  contrived  their  revenge  that  the 
very  man  whose  life  had  been  a  series  of  attacks  on  the  liberties 
of  England  now  seemed  to  die  a  martyr  in  the  cause  of  those 
liberties.  No  demagogue  ever  produced  such  an  impression  on 
the  public  mind  as  the  captive  King,  who,  retaining  in  that 
extremity  all  his  regal  dignity,  and  cpnfronting  death  with 
dauntless  courage,  gave  utterance  to  the  feelings  of  his  oppressed 
people,  manfully  refused  to  plead  before  a  court  unknown  to 


BEFORE    THK    RESTORATION.  125 

the  law,  appealed  from  military  violence  to  the  principles  of 
the  constitution,  asked  by  what  right  the  House  of>  Commons 
had  been  purged  of  its  most  respectable  members  and  the 
House  of  Lords  deprived  of  its  legislative  functions,  and  told 
liis  weeping  hearers  that  he  was  defending,  not  only  his  own 
cause,  but  theirs.  His  long  misgovernment,  his  iimumerable 
perfidies,  were  forgotten.  His  memory  was,  in  the  minds  of 
the  great  majority  of  his  subjects,  associated  with  those  free 
institutions  which  he  had,  during  many  years,  laboured  to 
destroy  :  for  those  free  institiitions  had  perished  with  him,  and, 
amidst  the  mournful  silence  of  a  community  kept  down  by 
arms,  had  been  defended  by  his  voice  alone.  From  that  day 
began  a  reaction  in  favour  of  monarchy  and  of  the  exiled  house, 
a  reaction  which  never  ceased  till  the  throne  had  again  been 
set  up  in  all  its  old  dignity. 

At  first,  however,  the  slayers  of  the  King  seemed  to  have 
derived  new  energy  from  that  sacrament  of  blood  by  which 
they  had  bound  themselves  closely  together,  and  separated 
themselves  for  ever  from  the  great  body  of  their  countrymen. 
England  was  declared  a  commonwealth.  The  House  of  Com- 
mons, reduced  to  a  small  number  of  members,  was  nominally 
the  supreme  jDower  in  the  state.  In  fact,  the  army  and  its 
great  chief  governed  everything.  Oliver  had  made  his  choice. 
He  had  kept  the  hearts  of  his  soldiers,  and  had  broken  with 
almost  every  other  class  of  his  fellow  citizens.  Beyond  the 
limits  of  his  camps  and  fortresses  he  could  scarcely  be  said  to 
have  a  party.  Those  elements  of  force  which,  when  the  civil 
war  broke  out,  had  appeared  arrayed  against  each  otheV,  were 
combined  against  him  ;  all  the  Cavaliers,  the  great  majority  of 
the  Roundheads,  the  Anglican  Church,  the  Presbyterian  Church, 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  England,  Scotland,  Ireland.  Yet 
such  was  Ills  genius  and  resolution  that  he  was  able  to  over- 
power and  crush  everything  that  crossed  his  path,  to  make 
himself  more  absolute  master  of  his  country  than  any  of  her 
legitimate  Kings  had  been,  and  to  make  his  country  more 
dreaded  and  respected  than  she  had  been  during  many  genera- 
tions under  the  rule  of  her  legitimate  Kings. 


126  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

i 

England  had  already  ceased  to  struggle.  But  the  two 
other  kingdoms  which  had  been  governed  by  the  Stuarts  were 
hostile  to  the  new  republic.  The  Independent  party  was 
equally  odious  to  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Ireland  and  to  the 
Presbyterians  of  Scotland.  Both  those  countries,  lately  in 
rebellion  against  Charles  the  First,  now  acknowledged  the 
authority  of  Charles  the  Second. 

But  everything  yielded  to  the  vigour  and  ability  of  Crom- 
well. In  a  few  months  he  subjugated  Ireland,  as  Ireland  had 
never  been  subjugated  during  the  five  centuries  of  slaughter 
which  had  elapsed  since  the  landing  of  the  first  Norman 
settlers.  He  resolved  to  put  an  end  to  that  conflict  of  races 
and  religions  which  had  so  long  distracted  the  island,  by  making 
the  English  and  Protestant  population  decidedly  predominant. 
For  this  end  he  gave  the  rein  to  the  fierce  enthusiasm  of  his 
followers,  waged  war  resembling  tliat  which  Israel  waged  on 
the  Canaanites,  smote  the  idolaters  with  the  edge  of  tlie  sword, 
so  that  great  cities  were  left  without  inhabitants,  drove  many 
thousands  to  the  Continent,  shipped  off  many  thousands  to  the 
West  Indies,  and  supplied  the  void  thus  made  by  pouring  in 
numerous  colonists,  of  Saxon  blood,  and  of  Calvinistic  faith. 
Strange  to  say,  under  that  iron  rule,  the  conquered  country 
began  to  wear  an  outward  face  of  prosperity.  Districts,  which 
had  recently  been  as  wild  as  those  where  the  first  white  settlers 
of  Connecticut  were  contending  with  the  red  men,  were  in  a  few 
years  transformed  into  the  likeness  of  Kent  and  Norfolk. 
New  buildings,  roads,  and  plantations  were  everywher«  seen. 
The  r*nt  of  estates  rose  fast ;  and  soon  the  English  landowners 
began  to  complain  that  they  were  met  in  every  market  by  the 
products  of  Ireland,  and  to  clamour  for  protecting  laws. 

From  Ireland  the  victorious  chief,  who  was  now  in  name, 
as  he  had  long  been  in  reality.  Lord  General  of  the  armies  of 
the  Commonwealth,  turned  to  Scotland.  The  Youns  KinffM-as 
there.  ,He  had  consented  to  profess  himself  a  Presbyterian, 
and  to  subscribe  the  Covenant ;  and,  in  return  for  these  con- 
cessions, the  austere  Puritans  who  bore  sway  at  Edinburgh  had 
permitted  him  to  assume  the  crown,  and  to  hold,  under  their 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  127 

inspection  and  control,  a  solemn  and  melancholy  court.  This 
mock  royalty  was  of  short  duration.  In  two  great  battles 
Cromwell  annihilated  the  military  force  of  Scotland.  Charles 
fled  for  his  life,  and,  with  extreme  difficulty,  escaped  the  fate 
of  his  father.  The  ancient  kingdom  of  the  Stuarts  was  reduced, 
for  the  first  time,  to  profound  submission.  Of  that  independ- 
ence, so  manfully  defended  against  the  mightiest  and  ablest  of 
the  Plantagenets,  no  vestige  was  left.  The  English  Parliament 
made  laws  for  Scotland.  English  judges  held  assizes  in  Scot- 
land. Even  that  stubborn  Church,  which  has  held  its  own 
against  so  many  governments,  scarce  dared  to  utter  an  audible 
murmur. 

Thus  far  there  had  been  at  least  the  semblance  of  harmony  be- 
tween the  warriors  who  had  subjugated  Ireland  and  Scotland  and 
the  politicians  who  sate  at  Westminster  :  but  the  alliance  which 
had  been  cemented  by  danger  was  dissolved  by  victory.  The 
Parliament  forgot  that  it  was  but  tb.e  creature  of  the  army.  The 
army  was  less  disposed  than  ever  to  submit  to  the  dictation  of  the 
Parliament.  Indeed  the  few  members  who  made  up  what  was 
contemptuously  called  the  Rump  of  the  House  of  Commons  had 
no  more  claim  than  the  military  chiefs  to  be  esteemed  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  nation.  The  dispute  was  soon  brought  to  a 
decisive  issue.  Cromwell  filled  the  House  with  armed  men.  The 
Speaker  was  pulled  out  of  his  chair,  the  mace  taken  from  the 
table,  the  room  cleared,  and  the  door  locked.  The  nation,  which 
loved  neither  of  the  contending  parties,  but  which  was  forced, 
in  its  own  despite,  to  respect  the  capacity  and  resolution  of  the 
General,  looked  ou  with  patience,  if  not  with  complacency. 

King,  Lords,  and  Commons,  had  now  in  turn  been  van- 
quished and  destroyed  ;  and  Cromwell  seemed  to  be  left  the 
sole  heir  of  the  powers  of  all  three.  Yet  were  certain  limitations 
still  imposed  on  him  by  the  very  army  to  which  he  owed  his 
immense  authority.  That  singular  body  of  men  was,  for  the 
most  part,  composed  of  zealous  republicans.  In  the  act  of 
enslaving  their  country,  they  had  deceived  themselves  into  the 
belief  that  they  were  emancipating  her.  The  book  which  they 
most  venerated  furnished  them   with  a  precedent  which  was 


128  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

frequently  in  their  mouths.  It  was  true  that  the  ignorant  and 
ungrateful  nation  murmured  against  its  deliverers.  Even  so 
had  another  chosen  nation  murmured  against  the  leader  who 
brought  it,  by  painful  and  dreary  paths,  from  the  house  of 
bondage  to  the  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey.  Yet  had 
that  leader  rescued  his  brethren  in  spite  of  themselves  ;  nor  had 
he  shrunk  from  making  terrible  examples  of  those  who  con- 
tenined  the  proffered  freedom,  and  pined  for  the  fleshpots,  the 
taskmasters,  and  the  idolatries  of  Egypt.  The  object  of  the 
warlike  saints  who  surrounded  Cromwell  was  the  settlement  of 
a  free  and  pious  commonwealth.  For  that  end  they  were  ready 
to  employ,  without  scruple,  any  means,  however  violent  and 
lawless.  It  was  not  impossible,  therefore,  to  establish  by  their 
aid  a  dictatorship  such  as  no  King  had  ever  exercised :  but  it 
was  probable  that  their  aid  would  be  at  once  withdrawn  from  a 
ruler  who,  even  under  strict  constitutional  restraints,  should 
venture  to  assume  the  kingly  name  and  dignity. 

The  sentiments  of  Cromwell  were  widely  different.  He 
was  not  what  he  had  been ;  nor  would  it  be  just  to  consider  the 
change  which  his  views  had  undergone  as  the  effect  merely  of 
selfish  ambition.  He  had,  when  he  came  up  to  the  Long 
Pai'liament,  brought  with  him  from  his  rural  retreat  little 
knowledge  of  books,  no  experience  of  great  affairs,  and  a  tem- 
per galled  by  the  long  tyranny  of  the  government  and  of  the 
hierarchy.  He  had,  during  the  thirteen  years  which  followed, 
gone  through  a  political  education  of  no  common  kind.  He 
had  been  a  chief  actor  in  a  succession  of  revolutions.  He  had 
been  long  the  soul,  and  at  last  the  head,  of  a  party.  He  had 
commanded  armies,  won  battles,  negotiated  treaties,  subdued, 
pacified,  and  regulated  kingdoms.  It  would  have  been  strange 
indeed  if  his  notions  had  been  still  the  same  as  in  the  days  when 
his  mind  was  principally  occupied  by  his  fields  and  his  religion, 
and  when  the  greatest  events  which  diversified  the  course  of 
his  life  were  a  cattle  fair  or  a  prayer  meeting  at  Huntingdon. 
He  saw  that  some  schemes  of  innovation  for  which  he  had  once 
been  zealous,  whether  good  or  bad  in  themselves,  were  oj^posed 
to  the  general  feeling  of  the  country,  and  that,  if  he  persevered 


BEFORK    THE    RESTORATION.  129 

in   those   schemes,  he  had  uothiiig  before  him    but   constant 
trouUcG,  which  must  be  suppressed  by  the  constant  use  of  the 
sword.     He  therefore  wished  to  restore,  in  all   essentials,  that 
ancient  constitution  which  the  majority  of  the  people  had  always 
loved,  and  for  which  they  now  pined.      The  course  afterwards 
taken  by  Monk  was  not  open   to  Cromwell.      The  memory  of 
one  terrible  day  separated  the  great  regicide  for  ever  from  the 
House   of    S^trart.     What  remained  was  that  he  should  mount 
the  ancient  English  throne,  and  reign  according  to  the  ancient 
English  polity.      If  he  could  effect  this,  he  might  hope  that  the 
wounds  of  the  lacerated  State  would  heal  fast.     Great  nunabers 
of  honest  and  quiet  mon  would  speedily  rally  round  him.    Those 
Royalists    whose     attachment  was   rather  to   institutions   than 
to  persons,  to  the  kingly  office  than  to  King  Charles  the  First 
or  King  Charles  the  Secmd,  would  soon  kiss  the  hand  of  King 
Oliver.     The  23eers,  who  now  remained  sullenly  at  their  country 
houses,   and  refused  to  take  any  part  in  public  affairs,  would, 
when  summoned  to  their  House  by  the  writ  of  a  King  in  pos- 
session, gladly  resume   their  ancient  functions.     Northumlxr- 
land  and  Bedford,  Manchester  and  Pembroke,  would  be  prouct 
to  bear  the   crown  and   the    spurs,  the  sceptre  and  the  globe, 
before   the   restorer   of    ai'istocracy.      A  sentiment   of  loyalty 
would  gradu.dly  bind  the  people  to  the   new  dynasty  ;  and,  on 
the  decease    of  the  founder  of  that  dynasty,  the  royal  dignity 
might  descend  with  general  acquiescence  to  his  posterity. 

The  ablest  Royalists  were  of  opinion  that  these  views  were 
correct,  and  that,  if  Cromwell  had  been  permitted  to  follow 
his  own  judgment,  the  exiled  line  would  never  have  been  re- 
stored But  his  plan  was  directly  opposed  to  the  feelings  of 
the  only  class  which  he  dared  not  offend.  The  name  of 
King  was  hateful  to  the  soldiers.  Some  of  them  were  indeed 
unwilling  to  see  the  administration  in  the  hands  of  any  single 
person.  The  great  majority,  however,  were  disposed  to  sup- 
port their  general,  as  elective  first  magistrate  of  a  common- 
wealth, against  all  factions  which  might  resist  his  authority : 
but  they  would  not  consent  that  he  should  assume  the  regal 
title,  or  that  the  dignity,  which  was  the   just  reward  of   his  per- 


130  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

sonal  merit,  should  be  declared  hereditary  in  his  famih^  Ali 
that  was  left  to  him  was  to  give  to  the  new  republic  a  constitu- 
tion as  like  the  constitution  of  the  old  monarchy  as  the  army 
would  bear.  That  his  elevation  to  power  might  not  seem"to  be 
merely  his  own  act,  he  convoked  a  council,  composed  partly 
of  persons  on  whose  support  he  could  depend,  and  jjartly  of 
persons  whose  opposition  he  might  safely  defy.  Tliis  assembly, 
which  he  called  a  Parliament,  and  which  the  j^opulace  nick- 
named, from  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  members,  Barebones's 
Parliament,  alter  exposing  itself  during  a  short  time  to  the 
public  contempt,  surrendered  back  to  the  General  the  powers 
which  it  had  received  from  him,  and  left  him  at  liberty  to  frame 
a  plan  of  government. 

His  plan  bore,  from  the  first,  a  considerable  resemblance  to 
the  old  English"  constitution:  but,  in  a  few  years,  he  thought 
it  safe  to  proceed  further,  and  to  restore  almost  every  part  of 
the  ancient  system  under  new  names  and  forms.  The  title  of 
King  was  not  revived  ;  but  the  kingly  prerogatives  were  in- 
trusted to  a  Lord  Hicjh  Protector.  The  sovereign  was  called 
not  His  Majesty,  but  His  Highness.  He  was  not  crowned  and 
anointed  in  Westminster  Abbey,  but  was  solemnly  enthroned, 
girt  with  a  sword  of  state,  clad  in  a  robe  of  purple,  and  pre- 
sented with  a  rich  Bible,  in  Westminster  Hall.  His  office  was 
not  declared  hereditary  :  but  he  was  permitted  to  name  his  suc- 
cessor ;    and  none  could  doubt  that  he  would  name  his  son. 

A  House  of  Commons  was  a  necessary  part  of  the  new 
polity.  In  constituting  this  body,  the  Protector  showed  a 
wisdom  and  a  public  spirit  which  were  not  duly  appreciated  by 
his  contemporaries.  The  vices  of  the  old  representative  sys- 
tem, though  by  no  means  so  serious  as  they  afterwards  became, 
had  already  been  remarked  by  farsighted  men.  Cromwell  re- 
formed that  system  on  the  same  principles  on  which  Mr.  Pitt, 
a  hundred  and  thirty  years  later,  attempted  to  reform  it,  and 
on  which  it  was  at  length  reformed  in  our  own  times.  Small 
boroughs  were  disfranchised  even  more  unsparingly  than  in  1832  ; 
and  the  number  of  county  members  was  greatly  increased. 
Very  few  unrepresented  towns  had  yet  grown  into  importance. 


BEFORK    THE    RESTORATION  131 

Of  those  towns  the  most  considerable  wore  Manchester, 
Leeds,  and  Halifax.  Representatives  were  given  to  all  three. 
An  addition  was  made  to  the  number  of  the  members  for  the 
capital.  The  elective  franchise  was  placed  on  such  a  footing 
that  every  man  of  substance,  whether  possesfed  of  freehold 
estates  in  laud  or  not,  had  a  vote  for  the  courty  in  which  he 
resided.  A  few  Scotchmen  and  a  few  of  the  English  colonists 
settled  in  Ireland  were  summoned  to  the  assembl}  which  was  to 
legislate,  at  Westminster,  for  every  part  of  the  Brtish  isles. 

To  create  a  House  of  Lords  was  a  less  easy  task.  Democ- 
racy does  not  require  the  support  of  prescription  Monarchy 
has  often  stood  without  that  support.  But  a  patrician  order  is 
the  work  of  time.  Oliver  found  already  existing  a  nobility, 
opulent,  highly  considered,  and  as  popular  with  the  i  ommonalty 
as  any  nobility  has- ever  been.  Had  he,  as  King  o.*^  England, 
commanded  the  peers  to  meet  him  in  Parliament  according  to 
the  old  usage  of  the  realm,  many  of  them  would  undoubtedly 
have  obeyed  the  call.  This  he  could  not  do  ;  :uid  it  was  to  no 
purpose  that  he  offered  to  the  chiefs  of  illustriou  _i.Tiil:es  seats 
in  his  new  senate.  They  conceived  that  they  could  not  accept 
a  nomination  to  an  upstart  assembly  without  renouncing  their 
birthright  and  betraying  their  order.  The  Protector  was.  there- 
fore, under  the  necessity  of  filling  his  Upper  House  with  new 
men  who,  during  the  late  stirring  times,  had  made  themselves 
conspicuous.  This  was  the  least  happy  of  his  contrivances,  and 
displeased  all  parties.  The  Levellers  were  angry  with  him  for 
instituting  a  privileged  class.  The  multitude,  which  felt  re- 
spect and  fondness  for  the  great  historical  names  of  the  land- 
laughed  without  restraint  at  a  House  of  Lords,  in  which  lucky 
draymen  and  shoemakers  were  seated,  to  which  few  of  the  old 
nobles  were  invited,  and  from  which  almost  all  those  old  noble? 
who  were  invited  turned  disdainfully  away. 

How  Oliver's  Parliaments  were  constituted,  however,  was 
practically  of  little  moment :  for  he  possessed  the  means  of 
conducting  the  administration  without  their  support,  and  in  de- 
fiance of  their  opposition.  His  wish  seems  to  have  been  to  govern 
constitutionally,  and  to  substitute  the  empire  of  the  laws  for  that 


/ 


132  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

of  the  sword.  But  he  soon  fomid  that,  hated  as  he  was,  both  by 
Royalists  and  Presbyterians,  he  could  be  safe  only  by  being  ab- 
solute. The  first  House  of  Commons  which  the  people  elected  by 
his  command,  questioned  his  authority,  and  was  dissolved  Avitliout 
having  passed  a  single  act.  His  second  House  of  Commons, 
though  it  recognised  him  as  Protector,  and  would  gladly  have 
made  him  King,  obstinately  refused  to  acknowledge  his  new 
Lords.  He  had  no  course  left  but  to  dissolve  the  Parliament. 
"  God,"  he  exclaimed,  at  parting,  "  be  judge  between  you  and 
me  !  " 

Yet  was  the  energy  of  the  Protector's  administration  in  no- 
wise relaxed  by  these  dissensions.  Those  soldiers  who  would 
not  suffer  him  to  assume  the  kingly  title  stood  by  him  when  he 
ventured  on  acts  of  power,  as  high  as  any  English  King  has 
ever  attempted.  The  government,  therefore,  though  in  form  a 
republic,  was  in  truth  a  despotism,  moderated  only  by  the  wis- 
dom, the  sobriety,  and  the  magnanimity  of  the  despot.  The 
country  was  divided  into  military  districts.  Those  districts  were 
placed  undp-  the  command  of  Major  Generals.  Every  insur- 
rectionary m.jvement  was  promptly  j^ut  down  and  punished. 
The  fear  inspn'ed  by  the  power  of  the  sword,  in  so  strong,  steady, 
and  expert  a  hand,  quelled  the  spirit  both  of  Cavaliers  and 
Levellers.  The  loyal  gentry  declared  that  they  were  still  as 
ready  as  ever  to  risk  their  lives  for  the  old  government  and  the 
old  dynasty,  if  there  were  the  slightest  hope  of  success  :  but  to 
rush,  at  the  head  of  their  serving  men  and  tenants,  on  the  pikes 
of  brigades  victorious  in  a  hundred  battles  and  sieges,  would  be 
a  frantic  waste  of  innocent  and  honourable  blood.  Both  Royal- 
ists and  Republicans,  having  no  hope  in  open  resistance,  began 
to  revolve  dark  schemes  of  assassination  :  but  the  Protector's 
intelligence  was  good:  his  vigilance  was  unremitting  ;  and,  when- 
ever he  moved  beyond  the  walls  of  his  palace,  the  drawn  swords 
and  cuirasses  of  his  trusty  bodyguards  encompassed  him  thick 
an  every  side. 

Had  he  been  a  cruel,  licentious,  and  rapacious  prince,  the 
nation  might  have  found  courage  in  despair,  and  might  have 
made  a  convulsive  effort  to  free  itself  from  military  domination. 


BEFORE    THE   RESTORATION.  133 

But  the  grievances  which  the  country  suffered,  though  such  as 
excited  serious  discontent,  were  by  no  means  such  as  impel  great 
masses  of  men  to  stake  their  lives,  their  fortunes,  and  the  wel- 
fare of  their  families  against  fearful  odds.  The  taxation,  though 
heavier  than  it  had  been  under  the  Stuarts,  was  not  heavy  when 
compared  with  that  of  the  neighbouring  states  and  with,  the  re- 
sjurces  of  England.  Property  was  secure.  Even  the  Cavalier, 
who  refrained  from  giving  disturbance  to  the  new  settlement,  en- 
joyed in  peace  whatever  the  civil  troubles  had  left  him.  The 
laws  were  violated  only  in  cases  where  the  safety  of  the  Protec- 
tor's person  and  government  was  concerned.  Justice  was  adminis- 
tered between  man  and  man  with  an  exactness  and  purity  not 
before  known.  Under  no  English  government  since  the  Ref- 
ormation, had  thei-e  been  so  little  religious  persecution.  The 
unfortunate  Roman  Catholics,  indeed,  were  held  to  be  scarcely 
within  the  pale  of  Christian  charity.  But  the  clergy  of  the 
fallen  Anglican  Church  were  suffered  to  celebrate  their  worship 
on  condition  that  they  would  abstain  from  preaching  about  poli- 
tics. Even  the  Jews,  whose  public  worship  had,  ever  since  the 
thirteenth  century,  been  interdicted,  were,  in  spite  of  the  strong 
opposition  of  jealous  traders  and  fanatical  theologians,  permit- 
ted to  build  a  synagogue  in  London. 

The  Protector's  foreign  policy  at  the  same  time  extorted 
the  ungracious  approbation  of  those  who  most  detested  him. 
The  Cavaliers  could  scarcely  refrain  from  wishing  that  one 
who  had  done  so  much  to  raise  the  fame  of  the  nation  had 
been  a  legitimate  King  ;  and  the  Republicans  were  forced  to 
own  that  the  tyrant  suffered  none  but  himself  to  wrong  his 
country,  and  that,  if  he  had  robbed  her  of  liberty,  he  had  at 
least  given  her  glory  in  exchange.  After  half  a  century  during 
which  England  had  been  of  scarcely  more  weight  in  European 
politics  than  Venice  or  Saxony,  she  at  once  became  the  most 
formidable  power  in  the  world,  dictated  terms  of  peace  to  the 
United  Provinces,  avenged  the  common  injuries  of  Christendom 
on  the  pirates  of  Barbary,  vanquished  the  Spaniards  by  land 
and  sea,  seized  one  of  the  finest  West  Indian  islands,  and 
acquired  on  the  Flemish  coast  a  fortress  which  consoled  the 


134  illSTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

national  pride  for  tvje  loss  of  Calais.  She  was  supreme  on  the 
ocean.  She  was  the  head  of  the  Protestant  interest.  All  the 
reformed  Churches  scattered  over  Roman  Catholic  kingdoms 
acknowledged  Cromwell  as  their  guardian.  The  Huguenots  of 
Languedoc,  the  shepherds  who,  in  the  hamlets  of  the  Alps, 
professed  a  Protestantism  older  than  that  of  Augsburg,  were 
secured  from  oppression  by  the  mere  terror  of  his  great  name. 
The  Pope  himself  was  forced  to  preach  humanity  and  modera- 
tion to  Popish  princes.  For  a  voice  which  seldom  threatened 
in  vain  had  declared  that,  unless  favour  were  shown  to  the 
people  of  God,  the  English  guns  should  be  heard  in  the  Castle 
of  Saint  Angelo.  In  truth,  there  was  notliing  which  Cromwell 
had,  for  his  own  sake  and  that  of  his  family,  so  much  reason  to 
desire  as  a  general  religious  war  in  Europe.  In  such  a  war  he 
must  have  been  the  captain  of  the  Protestant  armies.  The 
heart  of  England  would  liave  been  with  him.  His  victories 
would  have  been  hailetl  with  an  unanimous  enthusiasm  unknown 
in  the  country  since  the  rout  of  the  Armada,  and  would  have 
effaced  the  stain  which  one  act,  condemned  by  the  general 
voice  of  the  nation,  has  left  on  his  splendid  fame.  Unhappily 
for  him  he  had  no  opportunity  of  displaying  his  admirable 
military  talents,  except  against  the  inhabitants  of  the  British 
isles. 

While  he  lived  his  power  stood  firm,  an  object  of  mingled 
aversion,  admiration,  and  dread  to  his  subjects.  Few  indeed 
loved  his  government;  but  those  who  hated  it  most  hated  it. 
less  than  they  feared  it.  Had  it  been  a  worse  government,  it 
might  perhaps  have  been  overthrown  in  spite  of  all  its  strength. 
Had  it  been  a  weaker  government,  it  would  certainly  have 
been  overthrown  in  spite  of  all  its  merits.  But  it  had  modera- 
tion enough  to  abstain  from  those  oppressions  which  drive  men 
mad  ;  and  it  had  a  force  and  energy  which  none  but  men 
driven  mad  by  oppression  would  venture  to  encounter. 

It  has  often  been  affirmed,  but  with  little  reason,  that 
Oliver  died  at  a  time  fortunate  for  his  renown,  and  that,  if  his 
life  had  been  prolonged,  it  would  probably  have  closed  amidst 
disgraces  and  disasters.     It  is^  certain  that  he  was,  to  the  last, 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  135 

honoured  by  his  soldiers,  obeyed  by  the  whole  population  of 
the  British  islands,  and  dreaded  by  all  foreign  powers,  that  he 
was  laid  among  the  ancient  sovereigns  of  England  with  funeral 
pomp  such  as  London  had  never  before  seen,  and  that  he  was 
succeeded  by  his  son  Richard  as  quietly  as  any  King  had  ever 
been  succeeded  by  any  Priuce  of  Wales. 

During  five  months,  the  administration  of  Richard  Crom- 
well went  on  so  tranquilly  and  regularly  that  all  Europe 
believed  him  to  be  firmly  established  on  the  chair  of  state.  In 
truth  his  situation  was  in  some  respects  much  more  advanta- 
geous than  that  of  his  father.  The  young  man  had  made  no 
enemy.  His  hands  were  unstained  by  civil  blood.  The  Cav- 
aliers themselves  allowed  him  to  be  an  honest,  good-natured 
gentleman.  The  Presbyterian  party,  powerful  both  in  numbers 
and  in  wealth,  had  been  at  deadly  feud  with  the  late"  Protector, 
but  was  disposed  to  regard  the  present  Protector  with  favour. 
That  party  had  always  been  desirous  to  see  the  old  civil  polity 
of  the  realm  restored  with  some  clearer  definitions  and  some 
stronger  safeguards  for  public  liberty,  but  had  many  reasons 
for  dreading  the  restoration  of  the  old  family.  Richard  was 
the  very  man  for  politicians  of  this  description.  His  humanity, 
ingenuousness,  and  modesty,  the  mediocrity  of  his  abilities, 
and  the  docility  with  which  he  submitted  to  the  guidance  of 
persons  wiser  than  himself,  admirably  qualified  him  to  be  the 
head  of  a  limited  monarchy. 

For  a  time  it  seemed  highly  probable  that  he  would,  under 
the  direction  of  able  advisers,  effect  what  his  father  had  at- 
tempted in  vain.  A  Parliament  was  called,  and  the  writs  were 
directed  after  the  old  fashion.  The  small  boroughs  which  had 
recently  been  disfranchised  regained  their  lost  privilege  :  Man- 
chester, Leeds,  and  Halifax  ceased  to  return  members  ;  and 
the  county  of  York  was  again  limited  to  two  knights.  It  may 
seem  strange  to  a  generation  which  has  been  excited  almost  to 
madness  by  the  question  of  parliamentary  reform  that  great 
shires  and  towns  sho;  .d  have  submitted  with  patience,  and 
men  with  complacency,  to  this  change :  but  though  speculative 
■«en  might,  even  m  that  age,  discern  the  vices  of  the  old  repre- 


136  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Bentative  system,  and  predict  that  those  vices  would,  sooner  oi 
later,  produce  serious  practical  evil,  the  practical  evil  had  not 
yet  been  felt.  Oliver's  representative  system,  on  the  other 
hand,  though  constructed  on  sound  principles,  was  not  popular. 
Both  the  events  in  which  it  originated,  and  the  effects  which  it 
had  produced,  prejudiced  men  against  it.  It  had  sprung  from 
military  violence.  It  had  been  fruitful  of  nothing  .but  disputes. 
The  whole  nation  was  sick  of  government  by  the  sword,  and 
pined  for  government  by  the  law.  The  restoration,  therefore, 
even  of  anomalies  and  abuses,  which  were  in  strict  conformity 
with  the  law,  and  which  had  been  destroyed  by  the  sword,  gave 
general  satisfaction. 

Among  the  Commons  there  was  a  strong  opposition,  con- 
sisting partly  of  avowed  Republicans,  and  partly  of  concealed 
Royalists  :  but  a  large  and  steady  majority  appeared  to  be 
favourable  to  the  plan  of  reviving  the  old  civil  constitution 
under  a  new  dynasty.  Richard  was  solemnly  recognised  as 
first  magistrate.  The  Commons  not  only  consented  to  transact 
business  with  Oliver's  Lords,  but  passed  a  vote  acknowledging 
the  right  of  those  nobles  who  had,  in  the  late  troubles,  taken 
the  side  of  public  liberty,  to  sit  in  the  Upper  House  of  Parlia- 
ment without  any  new  creation. 

Thus  far  the  statesmen  by  whose  advice  Richard  acted  had 
been  successful.  Almost  all  the  parts  of  the  govei'nment  were 
now  constituted  as  they  had  been  constituted  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  civil  war.  Had  the  Protector  and  the  Parliament 
been  suffered  to  proceed  undisturbed,  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  an  order  of  things  similar  to  that  which  was  afterwards 
established  under  the  House  of  Hanover  would  have  been 
established  under  the  House  of  Cromwell.  But  there  was  in 
the  state  a  power  more  than  sufficient  to  deal  with  Protector 
and  Parliament  together.  Over  the  soldiers  Richard  had  no 
authority  except  that  which  he  derived  from  the  great  name 
which  he  had  inherited.  He  had  never  led  them  to  victory. 
He  had  never  even  borne  arms.  All  his  tastes  and  habits  were 
pacific.  Nor  were  his  opinions  and  feelings  on  religious  sub- 
jects approved  by  the  military  saints.     That  he  was  a  goo(j 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  137 

mau  he  evinced  by  proofs  more  satisfactory  than  deep  groans 
or  long  sermons,  by  humility  and  suavity  when  he  was  at  the 
height  of  human  greatness,  and  by  cheerful  resignation  under 
cruel  wrongs  and  misfortunes :  but  the  cant  then  common  iu 
every  guardroom  gave  him  a  disgust  which  he  had  not  always 
the  prudence  to  conceal.  The  officers  who  had  the  principal 
influence  among  the  troops  stationed  near  London  were  not 
his  friends.  They  were  men  distinguished  by  valour  and  con- 
duct in  the  field,  but  destitute  of  the  wisdom  and  civil  courage 
which  had  been  conspicuous  in  their  deceased  leader.  Some  oi 
them  were  honest,  but  fanatical,  Independents  and  Republicans. 
Of  this  class  Fleetwood  was  the  representative.  Others  were 
impatient  to  be  what  Oliver  had  been.  His  rapid  elevation,  his 
prosperity  and  glory,  his  inauguration  in  the  Hall,  and  his 
gorgeous  obsequies  in  the  Abbey,  had  inflamed  their  imagina- 
tion. They  were  as  well  born  as  he,  and  as  well  educated : 
they  could  not  understand  why  they  were  not  as  worthy  to 
wear  the  purple  robe,  and  to  wield  the  sword  of  state  ;  and 
they  pursued  the  objects  of  their  wild  ambition,  not,  like  him, 
with  patience,  vigilance,  sagacity,  and  determination,  but  with 
the  restlessness  and  irresolution  characteristic  of  aspiring  medi- 
ocrity. Among  these  feeble  copies  of  a  great  original  the  most 
conspicuous  was  Lambert. 

On  the  very  day  of  Richard's  accession  the  officers  began  to 
conspire  against  their  new  master.  The  good  understanding 
which  existed  between  him  and  his  Parliament  hastened  the 
crisis.  Alarm  and- resentment  spread  through  the  camp.  Both 
the  religious  and  the  i3rofessional  feelings  of  the  army  were 
deeply  wounded.  It  seemed  that  the  Independents  wer-e  to  be 
subjected  to  the  Presbyterians,  and  that  the  men  of  the  sword 
were  to  be  subjected  to  the  men  of  the  gown.  A  coalition  was 
formed  between  the  military  malecontents  and  the  republican 
minority  of  the  House  of  Commons.  It  may  well  be  doubted 
whether  Richard  could  have  triumphed  over  that  coalition,  even 
if  he  had  inherited  his  father's  clear  judgment  and  iron  courage. 
It  is  certain  that  simplicity  and  meekness  like  his  were  not  the 
qualities  which  the  conjuncture  required.     He  fell  ingloriously, 


138  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

and  without  a  struggle.  He  was  used  by  the  army  as  an  in- 
strument for  the  purpose  of  dissolving  the  Parliament,  and 
was  then  contemptuously  thrown  aside.  The  officers  gratified 
their  republican  allies  by  declaring  that  the  expulsion  of  the 
Rump  had  been  illegal,  and  by  inviting  that  assembly  to  resume 
its  functions.  The  old  Speaker  and  a  quorum  of  the  old  mem- 
bers came  together,  and  were  proclaimed,  amidst  the  scarcely 
stifled  derision  and  execration  of  the  whole  nation,  the  supreme 
power  in  the  commonwealth.  It  was  at  the  same  time  ex- 
pressly declared  that  there  should  be  no  first  magistrate,  and 
no  House  of  Lords. 

But  this  state  of  things  could  not  last.  On  the  day  on  which 
the  long  Parliament  revived,  revived  also  its  old  quarrel  with  the 
army.  Again  the  Rump  forgot  that  it  owed  its  existence  to  the 
pleasure  of  the  soldiers,  and  be  ^an  to  treat  them  as  subjects. 
Again  the  doors  of  the  House  of  Commons  were  closed  by  mil- 
itary violence  ;  and  a  provisional  government,  named  by  the  offi- 
cers, assumed  the  direction  of  affairs. 

Meanwhile  the  sense  of  great  evils,  and  the  strong  apprehen- 
sion of  still  greater  evils  close  at  hand,  b.ad  at  length  produced 
an  alliance  between  the  Cavaliers  and  the  Presbyterians.  Some 
Presbyterians  had,  indeed,  been  disposed  to  such  an  alliance  even 
before  the  death  of  Charles  the  First  :  but  it  was  not  till  after 
the  fall  of  Richard  Cromwell  that  the  whole  party  became  eager 
for  the  restoration  of  the  royal  house.  There  was  no  longer  any 
reasonable  hope  that  the  old  constitution  could  be  reestablished 
under  a  new  dynasty.  One  clioice  only  was  left,  the  Stuarts  or 
the  army.  The  banished  family  had  committed  great  faults  ; 
but  it  ha'd  dearly  expiated  those  faults,  and  had  undergone  a  long, 
and,  it  might  be  hoped,  a  salutary  training  in  the  school  of  ad- 
versity. It  was  probable  that  Charles  the  Second  would  take 
warning  by  the  fate  of  Charles  the  First.  But,  be  this  as  it 
might,  the  dangers  which  threatened  the  country  were  such  that, 
in  order  to  avert  them,  some  opinions  might  well  be  comjjro- 
mised,  and  some  risks  mi<;ht  well  be  incurre  J.  It  seemed  but 
too  likely  that  England  would  fall  under  the  most  odious  and 
degrading  of  all  kinds  of  government,  under  agovernment  uniting 


BEFORE    THE    RESTORATION.  139 

all  the  evils  of  despotism  to  all  the  evils  of  anarchy.  Anything 
was  preferable  to  the  yoke  of  a  succession  of  incapable  and  inglo- 
rious tyrants,  raised  to  power,  like  the  Deys  of  Barbary,  by  mil- 
itary revolutions  recurring  at  short  intervals.  Lambert  seemed 
likely  to  be  the  first  of  these  rulers  ;  but  within  a  year  Lambert 
might  give  place  to  Desborough,  and  Desborough  to  Harrison. 
As  often  as  the  truncheon  was  transferred  from  one  feeble  hand 
to  another,  the  nation  would  be  pillaged  for  the  purpose  of  be- 
stowing a  fresh  donative  on  the  troops.  If  the  Presbyterians 
obstinately  stood  aloof  from  the  Royalists,  the  state  was  lost ;  and 
men  might  well  doubt  whether,  by  the  combined  exertions  of 
Presbyterians  and  Royalists,  it  could  be  saved.  Eor  the  dread 
of  that  invincible  army  was  on  all  the  inhabi*;:uits  of  the  island  ; 
and  the  Cavaliers,  taught  by  a  hundred  disastrous  fields  how 
little  numbers  can  effect  against  discipline,  were  even  more  com- 
pletely cowed  than  the  Roundheads. 

While  the  soldiers  remained  united,  all  the  plots  and  risings 
of  the  malecontents  were  ineffectual.  But  a  few  days  after  the 
'second  expulsion  of  the  Rump,  came  tidings  which  gladdened 
the  hearts  of  all  who  were  attached  either  to  monarchy  or  to  lib- 
erty. That  mighty  force  which  had,  during  many  years,  acted 
as  one  man,  and  which,  while  so  acting,  had  beeij  found  irresisti- 
ble, was  at  length  divided  againsc  itself.  The  army  of  Scotland 
had  done  cood  service  to  the  Commonwealth,  and  was  in  the 
highest  state  of  efficiency.  It  had  borne  no  part  in  the  late  i  ev- 
olutions, and  had  seen  them  with  indignation  resembling  the 
indignation  which  the  Roman  legions  posted  on  the  Danube  and 
the  Euphrates  felt,  when  they  learned  that  the  empire  had  been 
put  up  to  sale  by  the  Prastorian  Guards,  It  was  intolerable  tliat 
certain  regiments  shouid,  merely  because  they  happened  to  be 
quartered  near  Westminster,  take  on  themselves  to  make  and  un- 
make several  governments  in  the  course  of  half  a  year.  If  it 
were  fit  that  the  state  should  be  reo;ulated  bv  the  soldiers,  those 
soldiers  who  upheld  the  English  ascendency  on  the  north  of  the 
Tweed  were  as  well  entitled  to  a  voice  as  those  who  garri- 
soned the  Tower  of  London.  There  appears  to  have  been  less 
fanaticism  among  the  troops  stationed  in  Scotland  than  in  any 


140  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

Other  part  of  the  army ;  and  their  general,  George  Monk,  was 
himself  the  very  opposite  of  a  zealot.  He  had  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  civil  war,  borne  arms  for  the  King,  had  been 
made  prisoner  by  the  Roundheads,  had  then  accepted  a  commis- 
sion from  the  Parliament,  and,  with  very  slender  pretensions  to 
saintship,  had  raised  himself  to  high  commands  by  his  courage 
and  professional  skill.  He  had  been  an  useful  servant  to  both 
the  Protectors,  and  had  quietly  acquiesced  when  the  officers  at 
Westminster  had  pulled  down  Richard  and  restored  the  Long 
Parliament,  and  would  perhaps  have  acquiesced  as  quietly  in 
the  second  exjiulsion  of  the  Long  Parliament,  if  the  provis- 
ional government  had  abstained  from  giving  him  cause  of 
offence  and  apprehCiJ-'^ion.  For  his  nature  was  cautious  and  some- 
what sluggish ;  nor  was  he  at  all  disposed  to  hazai'd  sure  and 
moderate  advantages  for  the  chance  of  obtaining  even  the  most 
splendid  success.  He  seems  to  have  been  impelled  to  attack 
the  new  rulers  of  the  Commonwealth  less  by  the  hope  that,  if 
he  overthrew  them,  he  should  become  great,  than  by  the  fear 
that,  if  he  submitted  to  them,  he  should  not  even  be  secure. 
Whatever  were  feis  motives,  he  declared  himself  the  cham- 
pion of  the  oppressed  civil  power,  refused  to  acknowledge  the 
usurped  authority  of  the  provisional  government,  and,  at  the 
head  of  seven  thousand  veterans,  marched  into  England. 

This  step  was  the  signal  for  a  general  explosion.  The  peo- 
ple everywhere  refused  to  pay  taxes.  The  apprentices  of  the 
City  assembled  by  thousands  and  clamoured  for  a  free  Parlia- 
ment. The  fleet  sailed  up  the  Thames,  and  declared  against 
the  tyranny  of  the  soldiers.  The  soldiers,  no  longer  under  the 
control  of  one  commanding  mind,  separated  into  factions. 
Every  regiment,  afraid  lest  it  should  be  left  alone  a  mark  for 
the  vengeance  of  the  oppressed  nation,  hastened  to  make  a  sep- 
arate peace.  Lambert,  who  had  hastened  northward  to  encoun- 
ter the  army  of  Scotland,  was  abandoned  by  his  troops,  and  be- 
came a  prisoner.  Daring  thirteen  years  the  civil  power  had,  in 
every  conflict,  been  compelled  to  yield  to  the  military  power.  The 
military  power  now  humbled  itself  before  the  civil  power.  The 
Rump,  generally  hated  and  despised,  but  still  the  only  body  in 


BEFORE    THE   KESTORATION.  141 

the  country  which  had  auy  show  of  legal  authority,  returned 
again  to  the  house  from  which  it  had  been  twice  ignominiously 
expelled. 

In  the  mean  time  Monk  was  advancing  towards  London. 
Wherever  he  came,  the  gentry  flocked  round  him,  imploring 
him  to  use  his  power  for  the  purpose  of  restoring  peace  and 
liberty  to  the  distracted  nation.  The  General,  coldblooded, 
taciturn,  zealous  for  no  polity  and  for  no  religion,  maintained 
an  impenetrable  reserve.  What  were  at  this  time  his  plans, 
and  whether  he  had  any  plan,  may  well  be  doubted.  His  great 
object,  apparently,  was  to  keep  himself,  as  long  as  possible,  free 
to  choose  between  several  lines  of  action.  Such,  indeed,  is 
commonly  the  policy  of  men  who  are,  like  him,  distinguished 
rather  by  wariness  than  by  farsightedness.  It  was  probably  not 
till  he  had  been  some  days  in  the  capital  that  he  had  made  up 
his  mind.  The  cry  of  the  whole  people  was  for  a  free  Parlia- 
ment ;  and  there  could  be  no  doubt  that  a  Parliament  really 
free  would  instantly  restore  the  exiled  family.  The  Rump  and 
the  soldiers  were  still  hostile  to  the  House  of  Stuart.  But  the 
Rump  was  universally  detested  and  despised.  The  power  of 
the  soldiers  was  indeed  still  formidable,  but  had  been  greatly 
diminished  by  discord.  They  had  no  head.  They  had  recently 
been,  in  many  parts  of  tbe  country,  arrayed  against  each  other. 
On  the  very  day  before  Monk  reached  London,  theie  was  a 
fight  in  the  Strand  between  the  cavalry  and  the  infantry.  An 
united  army  had  long  kept  down  a  divided  nation  ;  but  the  na- 
tion was  now  united,  and  the  army  was  divided. 

During  a  short  time  the  dissimulation  or  irresolution  of 
Monk  kept  all  parties  in  a  state  of  painful  suspense.  At  length 
he  broke  silence,  and  declared  for  a  free  Parliament. 

As  soon  as  his  declaration  was  known,  the  whole  nation 
was  wild  with  delight.  '  Wherever  he  appeared  thousands 
thronged  around  him,  shouting  and  blessing  his  name.  The 
bells  of  all  England  rang  joyously  :  the  gutters  ran  with  ale  ; 
and,  night  after  night,  the  sky  five  miles  round  London  was 
reddened  by  innumerable  bonfires.  Those  Presbyterian  mem- 
bers  of  the   House   of  Commons   who  had  many  years  before 


142  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

been  expelled  by  the  army,  I'eturned  to  their  seats,  and  were 
hailed  with  acclamations  by  great  multitudes,  which  filled 
Westminster  Hall  and  Palace  Yard.  The  Independent  leaders 
no  lonsrer  dared  to  show  their  faces  in  the  streets,  and  were 
scarcely  safe  within  their  own  dwellings.  Temporary  provision 
was  made  for  the  government  :  writs  were  issued  for  a  general 
election  ;  and  then  that  memorable  Parliament,  which  had,  in 
the  course  of  twenty  eventful  years,  experienced  every  variety  of 
fortune,  which  had  triumphed  over  its  sovereign,  which  had  been 
enslaved  and  degraded  by  its  servants,  which  had  been  twice 
ejected  and  twice  restored,  solemnly  decreed  its  own  dissolu- 
tion. 

The  result  of  the  elections  was  such  as  might  have  been 
expected  from  the  temper  of  the  nation.  The  new  House  of 
Commons  consisted,  with  few  exceptions,  of  persons  friendly  to 
the  royal  family.     The  Presbyterians  formed  the  majority. 

That  there  would  be  a  restoration  now  seemed  almost  cei'- 
tain  ;  but  whether  there  would  be  a  peaceable  restoration  was 
matter  of  painful  doubt.  The  soldiers  were  in  a  gloomy  and 
savage  mood.  They  hated  the  title  of  King.  They  hated  the 
name  of  Stuart.  They  hated  Presbyterianism  much,  and  Prel- 
acy more.  They  saw  with  bitter  indignation  that  the  close  of 
their  long  domination  was  approaching,  and  that  a  life  of  in- 
glorious toil  and  penury  was  before  them.  They  attributed 
their  ill  fortune  to  the  weakness  of  some  generals,  and  to  the 
treason  of  others.  One  hour  of  their  beloved  Oliver  mi<jht  even 
now  restore  the  glory  which  had  departed.  Betrayed,  dis- 
united, and  left  without  any  chief  in  whom  they  could  confide, 
they  were  yet  to  be  dreaded.  It  was  no  light  thing  to  encounter 
the  rage  and  despair  of  fifty  thousand  fighting  men,  whose  backs 
no  enemy  had  ever  seen.  Monk,  and  those  with  whom  he 
acted,  were  well  aware  that  the  crisis -was  most  perilous.  They 
employed  every  art  to  soothe  and  to  divide  the  discontented 
warriors.  At  the  same  time  vigorous  ^"•I'eparation  was  made 
for  a  conflict.  The  army  of  Scotland,  now  quartered  in  London, 
was  kept  in  good  humour  by  bribes,  praises,  and  promises.  The 
wealthy  citizens  grudged  nothing  to  a  redcoat,  and  were  indeed 


BEFORE    THE    KESTORATION.  lAt 

80  liberal  of  their  best  wine,  that  warlike  saints  were  some-, 
times  seen  in  a  condition  not  verj  honourable  either  to  their 
religious  or  to  their  military  character.  Some  refractory  regi- 
ments Monk  ventured  to  disband.  In  the  mean  time  the  greatest 
exertions  were  made  by  the  provisional  government,  with  tlie 
strenuous  aid  of  the  whole  body  of  the  gentry  and  magistracy, 
to  organise  the  militia.  In  every  county  the  trainbands  were 
held  ready  to  march ;  and  this  force  cannot  be  estimated  at  less 
than  a  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  men.  In  Hyde  Park 
twenty  thousand  citizens,  well  armed  and  accoutred,  passed  in 
review,  and  showed  a  spirit  which  justified  the  hope  that,  in 
case  of  need,  they  would  fight  manfully  for  their  shops  and 
firesides.  The  fleet  was  heartily  with  the  nation.  It  was 
a  stirring  time,  a  time  of  anxiety,  yet  of  hope.  The  prevailing 
opinion  was  that  England  ^fould  be  delivered,  but  not  without 
a  desperate  and  bloody  struggle,  and  that  the  class  "which  had  so 
long  ruled  by  the  sword  would  perish  by  the  sword. 

Happily  the  dangers  of  a  conflict  were  averted.  Thers 
was  indeed  one  moment  of  extreme  peril.  Lambert  escaped 
from  his  confinement,  and  called  his  comrades  to  arms.  The 
flame  of  civil  war  was  actually  rekindled ;  but  by  prompt  and 
vigorous  exertion  it  was  trodden  out  before  it  had  time  to 
spread.  The  luckless  imitator  of  Cromwell  was  again  a  pris- 
oner. The  failure  of  his  enterprise  damped  the  spirit  of  the 
soldiers  ;  and  they  sullenly  resigned  themselves  to  their  fate. 

The  new  Parliament,  which,  having  been  called  without 
the  royal  writ,  is  more  accurately  described  as  a  Convention, 
met  at  Westminster.  The  Lords  repaired  to  the  hall,  from 
which  they  had,  during  more  than  eleven  years,  been  excluded 
by  force.  Both  Houses  instantly  invited  the  King  to  return  to 
his  country.  He  was  proclaimed  with  pomp  nevor  before 
known.  A  gallant  fleet  convoyed  him  from  Holland  to  the 
coast  of  Kent  When  he  landed,  the  cliffs  of  Dover  were 
covered  by  thousands  of  gazers,  among  whom  scarcely  one  could 
be  found  who  was  not  weeping  with  delight.  The  journey  to 
London  was  a  continued  triumph.  The  whole  road  from 
Rochester  was  bordered  by  booths  and    tents,  and  looked  like 


144  HISTOKV    OF    KNGLANU. 

an  interminable  fair.  Everywhere  flags  were  flying,  bells  and 
music  sounding,  wine  and  ale  flowing  in  rivers  to  tlie  health 
of  him  whose  return  was  the  return  of  peace,  of  law,  and  of 
freedom.  But  in  the  midst  of  the  general  joy,  one  sj^ot  presented 
a  dark  and  threatening  aspect.-  On  Blackheath  the  army 
was  drawn  up  to  welcome  the  sovereign.  He  smiled,  bowed,  and 
extended  his  hand  graciously  to  the  lips  of  the  colonels  and 
majors.  But  all  his  courtesy  was  vain.  The  countenances  of  the 
soldiers  were  sad  and  lowering  ;  and  had  they  given  way  to  their 
feelings,  the  festive  pageant  of  which  they  reluctantly  made 
a  part  would  have  had  a  mournful  and  bloody  end.  But  there 
was  no  concert  among  them.  Discord  and  defection  had  left 
them  no  confidence  in  their  chiefs  or  in  each  other.  The 
whole  array  of  the  City  of  London  was  under  arms.  Numerous 
companies  of  militia  had  assembled  from  various  parts  of  the 
realm,  under  the  command  of  loyal  noblemen  and  gentlemen, 
to  welcome  the  King.  That  great  day  closed  in  peace  ;  and 
the  restored  wanderer  reiiosc^  "^fe  in  the  palace  of  his  ances" 


tAJJEK    CUAKLK.-5    lllb    oL:CO>'D  1  ia 


CHAPTER  II. 

The  history  of  England,  during  the  seventeenth  century,  is  the 
history  of  the  transformation  of  a  limited  monarchy,  constituted 
after  the  fashion  of  the  middle  ages,  into  a  limited  monarchy 
suited  to  that  more  advanced  state  of  society  in  which  the  pub- 
lic charges  can  no  longer  be  borne  by  the  estates  of  the  crown, 
and  in  which  the  public  defence  can  no  longer  be  entrusted  to  a 
feudal  militia.  We  have  seeu  that  the  politicians  who  were  at 
the  head  of  tlie  Long  Pai-liament  made,  in  1642,  a  great  effort 
to  accomplish  this  change  by  transferring,  directly  and  formally, 
to  the  estates  of  the  realm  the  choice  of  ministers,  the  command 
of  the  army,  and  the  superintendence  of  the  whole  executive 
administration.  This  scheme  was,  perhaps,  the  best  that  could 
then  be  contrived :  but  it  was  completely  disconcerted  by  the 
course  which  the  civil  war  took.  The  Houses  triumphed,  it  is 
true ;  but  not  till  after  such  a  struggle  as  made  it  necessary  for 
them  to  call  into  existence  a  power  which  they  could  not  control, 
and  which  soon  began  to  domineer  over  all  orders  and  all  par- 
ties. During  a  few  years,  the  evils  inseparable  from  military 
government  were,  in  some  degree,  mitigated  by  the  wisdom  and 
magnanimity  of  the  great  man  who  held  the  supreme  command. 
But,  when  the  sword,  which  he  had  wielded,  with  energy  indeed, 
but  with  energy  always  guided  by  good  sense  and  generally 
tempered  by  good  nature,  had  passed  to  captains  who  possessed 
neither  his  abilities  nor  his  virtues,  it  seemed  too  probable  that 
order  and  liberty  would  perish  in  one  ignominious  ruin. 

That  ruin  was  happily  averted.  It  has  been  too  much  the 
practice  of  writers  zealous  for  freedom  to  represent  the  Restor- 
ation as  a  disastrous  event,  and  to  condemn  the  folly  or  baseness 
of   that  Convention,  which  recalled  the  royal  family  without 

10 


T46  history    of    ENGLAND. 

exacting  new  securities  against  maladministration.  Those  who 
hold  this  language  do  not  comprehend  the  real  nature  of  the 
crisis  which  followed  the  deposition  of  Richard  Cromwell.  Eng- 
land was  in  imminent  danger  of  falling  under  the  tyranny  of  a 
succession  of  small  men  raised  up  and  pulled  down  by  military 
caprice.  To  deliver  the  country  from  the  domination  of  the 
soldiers  was  the  first  object  of  every  enlightened  patriot :  but  it 
was  an  object  which,  while  the  soldiers  were  united,  the  most 
sanguine  could  scarcely  expect  to  attain.  On  a  sudden  a  gleam 
of  hope  appeared.  General  was  opposed  to  general,  army  to 
army.  On  the  use  which  might  be  made  of  one  auspicious 
moment  depended  the  future  destiny  of  the  nation.  Our 
ancestors  used  that  moment  well.  They  forgot  old  injuries, 
waved  petty  scruples,  adjourned  to  a  more  convenient  season 
all  dispute  about  the  reforms  which  our  institutions  needed,  and 
stood  together,  Cavaliers  and  Roundheads,  Episcoi)alians  and 
Presbyterians,  in  firm  union,  for  the  old  laws  of  the  land  against 
military  despotism.  The  exact  partition  of  power  among  King, 
Lords,  and  Commons  might  well  be  postponed  till  it  had  been 
decided  whether  England  should  be  governed  by  King,  Lords, 
and  Commons,  or  by  cuirassiers  and  pikemen.  Had  the  states- 
men of  the  Convention  taken  a  different  course,  had  they  held 
long  debates  on  the  principles  of  government,  had  they  drawn 
up  a  new  constitution  and  sent  it  to  Charles,  had  conferences 
been  opened,  had  couriers  been  passing  and  repassing  during' 
some  weeks  between  Westminster  and  the  Netherlands,  with 
projects  and  counterprojects,  replies  by  Hyde  and  rejoinders  by 
Prynne,  the  coalition  on  which  the  public  safety  depended  would 
have  been  dissolved  :  the  Presbyterians  and  Royalists  would 
certainly  have  quarrelled  :  the  military  factions  might  possibly 
have  been  reconciled  ;  and  the  misjudging  friends  of  liberty 
might  long  have  regretted,  under  a  rule  worse  than  that  of  the 
worst  Stuart,  the  golden  opportunity  which  had  been  suffered 
to  escape. 

The  old  civil  polity  was,  therefore,  by  the  general  consent 
of  both  the  great  parties,  reestablished.  It  was  again  exactly 
what  it  had  been  when  Charles  the  First,  eighteen  years  before, 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  147 

withdrew  from  his  capital.  All  those  acts  of  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment which  had  received  the  royal  assent  were  admitted  to  be 
still  in  full  force.  One  fresh  concession,  a  concession  in  which 
the  Cavaliers  were  even  more  deeply  interested  than  the 
Roundheads,  was  easily  obtained  from  the  restored  King.  The 
military  tenure  of  land  had  been  originally  created  as  a  means 
of  national  defence.  But  in  the  course  of  ages  whatever  was 
useful  in  the  institution  had  disappeared;  and  nothing  was  left 
but  ceremonies  and  grievances.  A  landed  proprietor  who  held 
an  estate  under  the  crown  by  knight  service, — and  it  was  thus 
that  most  of  the  soil  of  England  was  held, — had  to  pay  a  large 
fine  on  coming  to  his  property.  He  could  not  alienate  one  acre 
without  purchasing  a  license.  When  he  died,  if  his  domains 
descended  to  an  infant,  the  sovereign  was  guardian,  and  was  not 
only  entitled  to  great  part  of  the  rents  during  the  minority,  but 
could  require  the  ward,  under  heavy  penalties,  to  marry  any 
person  of  suitable  rank.  The  chief  bait  which  attracted  a  needy 
sycophant  to  the  court  was  the  hope  of  obtaining  as  the  reward 
of  servility  and  flattery,  a  royal  letter  to  an  heiress.  These 
abuses  had  perished  with  the  monarchy.  That  they  should  not 
revive  with  it  was  the  wish  of  every  landed  gentleman  in  the 
kingdom.  They  were,  therefore,  solemnly  abolished  by  statute; 
and  no  relic  of  the  ancient  tenures  in  chivalry  was  allowed  to 
remain  except  those  honorary  services  which  are  still,  at  a 
coronation,  rendered  to  the  person  of  the  sovereign  by  some 
lords  of  manors. 

The  troops  were  now  to  be  disbanded.  Fifty  thousand  men, 
accustomed  to  the  profession  of  arms,  were  at  once  thrown  on 
the  world :  and  experience  seemed  to  warrant  the  belief  that 
this  change  would  produce  much  misery  and  crime,  that  the  dis- 
charged veterans  would  be  seea  begging  in  every  street,  or  that 
they  would  be  driven  by  hunger  to  pillage.  But  no  such  result 
followed.  In  a  few  months  there  remained  not  a  trace  indica- 
ting that  the  most  formidable  army  in  the  world  had  just  been 
absorbed  into  the  mass  of  the  community.  The  Royalists  them- 
selves confessed  that,  in  every  department  of  honest  industry, 

discarded  warriors  prospered  beyond  other  men,  that  none 


Ii8  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

was  charged  with  any  theft  or  robbery,  that  none  was  heard  to 
ask  an  alms,  and  that,  if  a  baker,  a  mason,  or  a  waggoner  at- 
tracted notice  by  his  diligence  and  sobriety,  he  was  in  all  prob- 
ability one  of  Oliver's  old  soldiers. 

The  military  tyranny  had  passed  away  ;  but  it  had  left  deep 
and  enduring  traces  in  the  public  mind.  The  name  of  standing 
army  was  long  held  in  abhorrence  :  and  it  is  remarkable  that 
this  feelinw  was  even  strdnsfer  amonu-  the  Cavaliers  than  amonff 
the  Roundheads-  It  ought  to  be  considered  as  a  most  fortunate 
circumstance  that,  when  our  country  was,  for  the  first  and  last 
time,  ruled  by  the  sword,  the  sword  was  in  the  hands,  not  of 
legitimate  princes,  but  of  those  rebels  who  slew  the  King  and 
demolished  the  Church.  Had  a  prince  with  a  title  as  good  as 
that  of  Charles,  commanded  an  army  as  good  as  that  of  Crom- 
well, there  would  have  been  little  hope  indeed  for  the  liberties 
of  England.  Happily  that  instrument  by  which  alone  the  mon- 
archy could  be  made  absolute  became  an  object  of  peculiar 
hon-or  and  disgust  to  the  monarchical  jjarty,  and  long  continued 
to  be  insejjarably  associated  in  the  imagination  of  Royalists  and 
Prelatists  with  regicide  and  field  preaching.  A  century  after 
the  death  of  Cromwell,  the  Tories  still  continued  to  clamour 
against  every  augmentation  of  the  regular  soldiery,  and  to  sound 
the  praise  of  a  national  militia.  So  late  as  the  year  178G,  a  min- 
ister who  enjoyed  no  common  measure  of  their  confidence  found 
it  impossible  to  overcome  their  aversion  to  his  scheme  of  fortify- 
ing the  coast :  nor  did  they  ever  look  with  entire  complacency 
on  the  standing  army,  till  the  French  Revolution  gave  a  new 
direction  to  their  apprehensions. 

The  coalition  which  had  restored  the  King  terminated  with 
the  danger  from  which  it  had  sprung ;  and  two  hostile  parties 
again  appeared  ready  for  conflict.  Both,  indeed,  were  agreed 
as  to  the  propriety  of  inflicting  punishment  on  some  unhappy 
men  who  were,  at  that  moment,  objects  of  almost  universal 
hatred.  Cromwell  was  no  more  ;  and  those  who  had  fled  be- 
fore him  were  forced  to  content  themselves  with  the  miserable 
satisfaction  of  digijing  up.  hanoring,  quartering,  and  burning  the 
remains  of  the  greatest  prince  that  has  ever  ruled  England. 


IXDKU    CIIARLKS    TIIK    SHCOND.  149 

Other  objects  of  vengeance,  few  indeed,  yet  too  many,  were  found 
among  the,  republican  chiefs.  Soon,  however,  the  conquerors, 
ghitted  with  the  blood  of  the  regicides,  turned  against  each 
other.  The  Roundheads,  while  admitting  the  virtues  of  the  late 
King,  and  while  condemning  the  sentence  passed  upon  him  by 
an  illegal  tribunal,  yet  maintained  that  his  administration  had 
been,  in  many  things,  unconstitutional,  and  that  the  Houses  had 
taken  arms  against  him  from  good  motives  and  on  strong 
grounds.  The  monarchy,-  these  politicians  conceived,  had  no 
worse  enemy  than  the  flatterer  who  exalted  prerogative  above 
the  law,  who  condemned  all  opposition  to  regal  encroachments, 
and  who  reviled,  not  only  Cromwell  and  Harrison,  but  Pym 
and  Hampden,  as  traitors.  If  the  King  v/ished  for  a  quiet  and 
y)rosperous  reign,  he  must  confide  in  those  who,  though  they 
had  drawn  the  sword  in  defence  of  the  invaded  privileges  of  Par- 
yiament,  had  yet  exposed  themselves  to  the  rage  of  the  soldiers 
in  order  to  save  his  father,  and  had  taken  the  chief  part  in 
bringing  back  the  royal  family. 

The  feeling  of  the  Cavaliers  was  widely  different.  During 
eighteen  years  they  had,  through  all  vicissitudes,  been  faithful 
to  the  Crown.  Having  shared  the  distress  of  their  prince,  were 
they  not  to  share  his  triumph?  Was  no  distinction  to  be  made 
between  them  and  the  disloyal  subject  who  had  fought  against 
his  rightful  sovereign,  who  had  adhered  to  Richard  Cromwell, 
and  who  had  never  concurred  in  the  restoration  of  the  Stuarts, 
till  it  appeared  that  nothing  else  could  save  the  nation  from  the 
tyranny  of  the  army  ?  Grant  that  such  h  man  liad,  by  his  re- 
cent services,  fairly  earned  his  pardon.  Yet  were  his  services, 
rendered  at  the  eleventh  hour,  to  be  put  in  comparison  with  the 
toils  and  sufferings  of  those  wlio  had  borne  th&  burden  and  heat 
of  the  day  ?  Was  he  t(j  be  ranked  with  men  who  had  no  need 
of  the  royal  clemency,  with  men  who  had,  in  every  part  of  their 
lives,  merited  the  royal  grr^titude  ?  Above  all,  was  he  to  be  suf- 
fered to  retain  ..  fortune  raised  out  of  tlie  substance  of  the  ruined 
defenders  of  the  throne  ?  Was  it  not  enough  that  his  head  and  his 
patrimonial  estate,  a  hundred  times  forfeited  to  justice,  were 
secure,  and  that  he  shared,  with  the  rest  of  tlie  nation,  in  the  bless- 


150  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

mgs  of  that  mild  government  of  whicli  he  had  long  been  the  foe  ? 
Was  it  necessary  that  he  should  be  rewarded  for  his  treason  at 
the  expense  of  men  whose  only  crime  was  the  fidelity  with  which 
they  had  observed  their  oath  of  allegiance.  And  what  interest 
had  the  King  in  gorging  his  old  enemies  with  prey  torn  from  his 
old  friends  ?  What  confidence  could  be  placed  in  men  who  had 
opposed  their  sovereign,  made  war  on  him,  imprisoned  him,  and 
who,  even  now,  instead  of  hanging  down  their  heads  in  shame 
and  contrition,  vindicated  all  that  they  had  done,  and  seemed  to 
think  that  they  had  given  an  illustrious  proof  of  loyalty  by  just 
stopping  short  of  regicide  ?  It  was  true  they  had  lately  assisted 
to  set  up  the  throne  :  but  it  was  not  less  true  that  they  had  pre- 
viously pulled  it  down,  and  that  they  still  avowed  principles 
which  might  impel  them  to  pull  it  down  again.  Undoubtedly 
it  might  be  fit  that  marks  of  royal  approbation  should  be  be- 
stowed on  some  converts  who  had  beeia  eminently  useful :  but 
policy,  as  well  as  justice  and  gratitude,  enjoined  the  King  to  give 
the  highest  place  in  his  regard  to  those  who,  from  first  to  last, 
through  good  and  evil,  had  stood  by  his  house.  On  these  grounds 
the  Cavaliers  very  naturally  demanded  indemnity  for  all  that 
they  had  suffered,  and  preference  in  the  distribution  of  the 
favours  of  the  Crown.  Some  violent  members'  of  the  party 
went  further,  and  clamoured  for  large  categories  of  proscrip- 
tion. 

The  political  feud  was,  as  usual,  exasperated  by  a  religious 
feud.  The  King  found  the  Church  in  a  singular  state.  A  short 
time  before  the  commencement  of  the  civil  war,  his  father  had 
given  a  reluctant  assent  to  a  bill,  strongly  supported  by  Falk- 
land, which  deprived  the  Bishops  of  their  seats  in  the  House  of 
Lords  :  but  Episcopacy  and  the  Liturgy  had  never  been  abol- 
ished bj  law.  The  Long  Parliament,  however,  had  passed  or- 
dinances which  had  made  a  complete  revolution  in  Church 
government  and  in  public  worship.  The  new  system  was,  in 
principle,  scarcely  less  Erastian  than  that  which  it  displaced. 
The  Houses,  guided  chiefly  by  the  counsels  of  tlie  accomplished 
Selden,  had  determined  to  keep  the  spiritual  power  strictly 
subordinate  to  the  temporal  power.     They  tiad  refused  to  declare 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  151 

that  any  form  of  ecclesiastical  polity  was  of  divine  origin  ;  and 
they  had  provided  that,  from  all  the  Church  courts,  an  appeal 
should  lie  in  the  last  resort  to  Parliament.  With  this  highly 
important  reservation,  it  had  been  resolved  to  set  up  in  England 
a  hierarchy  closely  resembling  that  which  now  exists  in  Scotland. 
The  authority  of  councils,  rising  one  above  another  in  regular 
gradation,  was  substituted  for  the  authority  of  Bishojjs  and 
Archbishops.  The  Liturgy  gave  place  to  the  Presbyterian 
Directory.  T5ut  scarcely  had  the  new  regulations  been  framed, 
.>'hen  the  Independents  rose  to  supreme- influence  in  the  state. 
The  Independents  had  no  disposition  to  enforce  the  ordinances 
touching  classical,  provincial,  and  national  synods.  Those  or- 
dinances, therefore,  were  never  carried  into  full  execution.  The 
Presbyterian  system  was  fully  established  nowhere  but  in  Mid- 
dlesex and  Lancashire.  In  the  other  fifty  counties  almost  every 
parish  seems  to  have  beei\  unconnected  with  the  neighbouring 
parishes.  In  some  districts,  indeed,  the  ministers  formed  them- 
selves into  voluntary  associations,  for  the  purpose  of  mutual 
help  and  counsel  ;  but  these  associations  had  no  coercive  power. 
The  patrons  of  livings,  being  now  checked  by  neither  Bishop 
nor  Presbytery,  would  have  been  at  liberty  to  confide  the  cure 
of  souls  to  the  most  scandalous  of  mankind,  but  for  the  ar- 
bitrary intervention  of  Oliver.  He  established,  by  his  own 
authority,  a  board  of  commissioners,  called  Triers.  Most  of 
these  persons  were  Independent  divines  ;  but  a  few  Presbyterian 
ministers  and  a  few  laymen  had  seats.  The  certificate  of  the 
Triers  stood  in  the  place  both  of  institution  and  of  induction  ; 
and  without  such  a  certificate  no  person  could  hold  a  benefice. 
This  was  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  despotic  acts  ever  done 
by  any  English  ruler.  Yet,  as  it  was  generally  felt  that,  with- 
out some  such  precaution,  the  country  would  be  overrun  by 
ignorant  and  drunken  reprobates,  bearing  the  name  and  receiv- 
ing the  pay  of  ministers,  some  highly  respectable  persons,  who 
were  not  in  general  friendly  to  Cromwell,  allowed  that,  on  this 
occasion,  he  had  been  a  public  benefactor.  The  presentees 
whom  the  Triers  had  approved  took  possession  of  the  rectories, 
cultivated  the  glebe  lands,  collected  the  tithes,  prayed  without 


152  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

book  or  surplice,  and  administered  the  Eucharist  to  communi-. 
cants  seated  at  long  tables. 

Thus  the  ecclesiastical  polity  of  the  realm  was  in  inextri- 
cable confusion.  Episcopacy  was  the  form  of  government  pre- 
scribed by  the  old  law  which  was  still  unrepealed.  The  form 
of  government  prescribed  by  parliamentary  ordinance  was 
Presbyterian.  But  neither  the  old  law  nor  the  parliamentary 
ordinance  was  practically  in  force.  The  Church  actually  estab- 
lished may  be  described  as  an  irregular  body  made  up  of  a  few 
Presbyteries  and  many  Independent  congregations,  which  were 
all  held  down  and  held  together  by  the  authority  of  the  govern- 
ment. 

Of  those  who  had  been  active  in  bringing  back  the  King, 
many  were  zealous  for  Synods  and  for  the  Directory,  and  many 
were  desirous  to  terminate  by  a  compromise  the  religious  dis- 
sensions which  had  long  agitated  England.  Between  the  big- 
oted followers  of  Laud  and  the  bigoted  followers  of  Knox  there 
could  be  neither  peace  nor  truce  :  but  it  did  not  seem  impossible 
to  effect  an  accommodation  between  the  moderate  Episcopalians 
of  the  school  of  Usher  and  the  moderate  Presbyterians  of  the 
school  of  Baxter.  The  moderate  Episcopalians  would  admit 
that  a  Bishop  might  lawfully  be  assisted  by  a  council.  The 
moderate  Presbyterians  would  not  deny  that  each  provincial 
assembly  might  lawfully  have  a  permar'^nt  president,  and  that 
this  president  might  lawfully  be  called  a  Bishop.  There  might 
be  a  revised  Liturgy  which  should  not  exclude  extempc^aneous 
prayer,  a  baptismal  service  in  which  the  sign  of  the  crgfes  might 
be  used  or  omitted  at  discretion,  a  communion  service  at  which 
the  faithful  might  sit  if  their  conscience  fori  ade  them  to  kneel. 
But  to  no  such  plan  could  the  great  bodies  of  the  Cavaliers 
listen  with  patience.  The  religious  members  of  that  party  were 
conscientiously  attached  to  the  whole  system  of  tlieir  Church. 
She  had  been  dear  to  their  murdered  King.  She  had  consoled 
them  in  defeat  and  penury.  Her  service,  so  often  whispered  in 
an  inner  chamber  dui-ing  the  season  of  trial,  had  such  a  charm 
for  them  that  they  were  unwilling  to  part  with  a  single  response. 
Other  Eoj-alists,  who  made  little  pretence  to  piety,  yet  loved 


tJNDEK    CHARLKS    THE    SECOND.  158 

the  episcoi  al  church  because  she  was  the  foe  of   their  foes. 
They  valued  a   prayer   or  a  ceremony,  not   on  account  of   the 
comfort  which  it  conveyed  to  themselves,  but  on  account  of  the 
vexation  which  it  gave  to  the  Roundheads,  aud  were  so  far  from 
bein<^   disposed  to   purchase  union  by  concession   that  they  ob- 
jected to  concession  chiefly  because  it  tended  to  produce  union. 
Such  feelings,  though  blamable,  were  natural,  and  not  wholly 
inexcusable.    The  Puritans  had  undoubtedly,  in  the  day  of  their 
power,  given  cruel  provocation.     They  ought  to  have  learned, 
if  from  nothing  else,  yet  from  their  own  discontents,  from  their 
own   struggles,  from   their   own  victory,  from  the   fall  of  that 
proud  hierarchy  by  which  they  had  been  so  heavily  oppressed, 
that,  in  England,  and  in  the  seventeenth  century,  it  was  not  in 
the  power  of  tlie  civil  magistrate  to  drill  the  minds  of  men  into 
conformity  with   his   own   system  of  theology.     They  proved, 
however,  as  intolerant  and  as  meddling  as  ever  Laud  had  been. 
They  interdicted  under  heavy  penalties  the  use  ©f  the  Book  of 
Common   Prayer,   not- only  in    churches,  but  even   in   private 
houses.     It  was  a  crime  in  a  child  to   read  by  the  bedside  of  a 
sick  parent  one  of  those  beautiful  collects  which  had  soothed 
the  griefs  of  forty  generations   of   Christians.     Severe  punish- 
ments were  denounced  against  such  as  should  presume  to  blame 
the    Calvinistic  mode  of  worship.     Clergymen   of  respectable 
character  were   not  only  ejected  from  their  benefices  by  thou- 
sands, but  were  frequently  exposed  to  the  outrages  of  a  fanatical 
rabble.     Churohes  and  sepulchres,  fine  works  of  art  and  curious 
remains  of  antiquity,  were  brutally  defaced.      The  Parliament 
resolved  that  all  pictures  in  the  royal  collection  which  contained 
representations  of  Jesus   or  of   the  Virgin  Mother  should  be 
burned.     Sculpture    fared    as    ill    as   painting.     Nymphs    and 
Graces,  the  work  of  Ionian  chisels,  were  delivered  over  to  Puri- 
tan stonemasons  to  be  made  decent.     Against  the  lighter  vices 
tUe  ruling  faction  waged   war   with  a  zeal   little  tempered   by 
humanity  or  by  common  sense.     Sharp  laws  were  passed  against 
betting.     It  was  enacted  that  adultery  should  be  punished  with 
death.     The  illicit  intercourse  of  the  sexes,  even  where  neither 
violence  nor  seduction   was  imputed,  where   no   public  scandal 


154  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

was  given,  where  no  conjugal  right  was  violated,  was  made  a 
misdemeanour.  Public  amusements,  from  the  masques  which 
were  exhibited  at  the  mansions  of  the  great  down  to  the  wrest- 
ling matches  and  grinning  matches  on  village  greens,  were  vig- 
orously attacked.  One  ordinance  directed  that  all  the  May- 
poles in  England  should  forthwith  be  hewn  down.  Another 
proscribed  all  theatrical  diversions.  The  playhouses  were  to  be 
dismantled,  the  spectators  fined,  the  actors  whipped  at  the  cart's 
tail.  Rope-dancing,  puppet-shows,  bowls,  horse-racing,  were  re- 
garded with  no  friendly  eye.  But  bearbaiting,  then  a  favourite 
diversion  of  high  and  low^  was  the  abomination  which  most 
strongly  stirred  the  wrath  of  the  austere  sectaries.  It  is  to  be 
remarked  that  their  antipathy  to  this  sport  had  nothing  in  com- 
mon with  the  feeling  which  has,  in  our  own  time,  induced  the 
legislature  to  interfere  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  beasts 
against  the  wanton  cruelty  of  men.  The  Puritan  hated  bear- 
baiting,  not  because  it  gave  pain  to  the  bear,  but  because  it  gave 
pleasure  to  the  spectators.  Indeed,  he  generally  contrived  to 
enjoy  the  double  pleasure  of  tormenting  both  spectators  and 
bear.* 

Perhaps   no   single   circumstance   more  strongly  illustrates 
the    temper    of   the    precisians    than   their    conduct  respecting 

*  How  little  compassion  for  the  bear  liad  to  do  with  the  m  itter  is  sufflcieutly 
proved  by  the  following  extract  from  a  paper  entitled  A  perfect  Diurnal  of  some 
Passages  of  Parliament,  and  from  other  Parts  of  the  Kingdom,  from  Monday 
July  24th,  to  Monday  July  31st,  1643.  "  Upon  the  Queen's  coming  from  Holland, 
she  brought  with  her,  besides  a  company  of  savage-like  ruffians,  a  company  of 
savage  bears,  to  what  purpose  you  may  judge  by  the  sequel.  Those  bears  were 
left  about  Newark,  and  were  brought  into  country  towns  constantly  on  the  Lord's 
day  to  be  Imted,  such  is  the  religion  those  here  related  would  settle  amongst  us; 
and,  if  any  went  about  to  hinder  or  but  speak  against  their  damnable  profana- 
tions, they  were  presently  noted  as  Roundheads  and  Puritans,  and  sure  to  be 
plundered  for  it.  But  some  of  Colonel  Cromwell's  forces  coming  by  accident  into 
Uppingham  town,  in  Rutland,  on  the  Lord's  day,  foujid  these  bears  playing  there 
in  the  usual  manner,  and,  in  the  height  of  their  sport,  causod  them  to  be  seized 
upon,  tied  to  a  tree  and  shot."  This  was  by  no  means  a  solitary  instance.  Colonel 
Pride,  when  Sheriff  of  Surrey,  ordered  the  beasts  in  the  bear  garden  of  Sottth- 
wark  to  be  killed.  He  is  represented  by  a  loyal  satirist  as  defending  the  act 
thus  :  "The  first  thing  that  is  upon  my  spirits  is  the  killing  of  the  bears,  for 
which  the  people  hate  me,  and  call  me  all  the  names  in  the  rainbow.  But  did  not 
David  kill  a  bear  ?  Did  not  the  Lord  Deputy  Ireton  kill  a  bear  ?  Did  not  anoth- 
er lord  of  ours  kill  five  bears?"— Last  Speech  and  Dying  Words  of  Thomaa 
Fride. 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND,  155 

Christmas  da3^     Christmas   had  been,  from  time  immemorial, 
the  season  of  joy  and  domestic  aflPection,  the;  season  when  fami- 
lies assembled,  when   children  came   home   from  school,  when 
quarrels  were  made  up,  when  carols  were  heard  in  every  street, 
when  every  house   w^as  decorated   with   evergreens,  and  every 
table   was   loaded  with  good  cheer.     At  that  season   all  hearts 
not  utterly  destitute  of  kindness  were   enlarged  and  softened.- 
At  that  season  the  poor  were  admitted  to  partake  largely  of  the 
overflowings  of  the  wealth  of  the  rich,  whose  bounty  was  pecu- 
liarly acceptable   on  account  of  the  shortness  of  the  days   and 
of  the  severity  of  the  weather.     At  that  season,  the  interval  be- 
tween landlord  and  tenant,  master  and  servant,  was  less  marked 
than  through    the   rest   of  the    year.     Where   there    is   much 
enjoyment  there  will   be  some   excess  :  yet,  on   the   w^hole,  the 
spirit  in  which  the  holiday  was   kept  was   not  unworthy  of  a 
Christian  festival.     The  long  Parliament  gave  ordersi-in  164i, 
that  the  twenty-fifth  of   December  should  be   strictly  observed 
as  a  fast,  and  that  all   men  should  pass  it  in  humbly  bemoan- 
ing the  great  national  sin  which   they   and  their   fathers  had 
to  often   committed   on  that  day  by  romping  under  the  mistle- 
toe, eating  boar's  head,  and  drinking  ale  flavored  with   roasted 
apples.      No   public  act  of  that  time  seems  to  have  irritated 
the  common  people  more.     On  the  next  anniversary  of  the  fes- 
tival formidable  riots  broke  out  in  many  places.     The  consta- 
bles were  resisted,  the  magistrates  insulted,  the  houses  of  noted 
zealots  attacked,  and  the  prescribed  service  of  the  day  openly 
read  in  the  churches. 

Such  was  the  spirit  of  the  extreme  Puritans,  both  Presby- 
terian and  Independent.  Oliver,  indeed,  was  little  disposed  to 
be  either  a  persecutor  or  a  meddler.  But  Oliver,  the  head  of 
a  party,  and  consequently,  to  a  great  extent,  the  slave  of  a  party, 
could  not  govern  altogether  according  to  his  own  inclinations. 
Even  under  his  administration  many  magistrates,  within  their 
own  jurisdiction,  made  themselves  as  odious  as  Sir  Iludibras, 
interfered  with  all  the  pleasures  of  the  neighbourhood,  dispersed 
festive  meetings,  and  put  fiddlers  in  the  stocks.  Still  more 
formidable  was  the  zeal  of  the  soldiers,     lu  every  village  where 


156  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

they  appeared  there  was  an  end  of  dancing,  belh-inging.  and 
hockey.  In  London  they  several  times  interrupted  theatrical 
performances  at  which  the  Protector  had  the  judgment  and  good 
nature  to  connive. 

With  the  fear  and  hatred  inspired  by  such  a  tyranny  con- 
tempt  was  largely  mingled.  The  peculiarities  of  the  Puritan, 
his  look,  his  dress,  his  dialect,  his  strange  scruples,  had  been, 
ever  since  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  favourite  subjects  with  mock- 
ers. But  these  peculiarities  appeared  far  more  grotesque  in  a 
faction  which  ruled  a  great  empire  than  in  obscure  and  perse- 
cuted congregations.  The  cant,  which  had  moved  laughter 
when  it  was  heard  on  the  stage  from  Tribulation  Wholesome 
and  Zeal-of-the-Land  Busy,  was  still  more  laughable  when  it 
proceeded  from  the  lips  of  Generals  and  Councillors  of  State. 
It  is  also  to  be  noticed  that  during  the  civil  troubles  several 
sects  ha4  sprung  into  existence,  whose  eccentricities  surpassed 
anything  that  had  before  been  seen  in  England.  A  mad  tailor, 
named  Lodowick  Muggleton,  wandered  from  pothouse  to  pot- 
house,tippling  ale,  and  denouncing  eternal  torments  against  those 
who  refused  to  believe,  on  his  testimony,  that  the  Supreme  Being 
was  only  six  feet  high,  and  that  the  sun  was  just  four  miles  from 
the  earth.*  George  Fox  had  raised  a  tempest  of  derision  by  pro- 
claiming that  it  was  a  violation  of  Christian  sincerity  to  desig- 
nate a  single  pei-son  by  a  plural  pronoun,  and  that  it  was  an 
idolatrous  homage  to  Janus  and  Woden  to  talk  about  January 
and  Wednesday.  His  doctrine,  a  few  years  later,  was  embraced 
by  some  eminent  men,  and  rose  greatly  in  the  public  estima- 
tion. But  at  the  time  of  the  Restoration  the  Quakers  were 
popularly  regarded  as  the  most  despicable  of  fanatics.  By  the 
Puritans  they  were  treated  with  severity  here,  and  were  perse- 
cuted to  the  death  in  New  England.  Nevertheless  the  public, 
which  seldom  makes  nice  distinctions,  often  confounded  the 
Puritan  with  the  Quaker.  Both  were  schismatics.  Both  hated 
episcopacy  and  the  Liturgy.  Both  had  what  seemed  extrava- 
gant whimsies  about  dress,  diversions,  and  postures.     Widely  as 

•  See  Peim'sNew-Witnesses  proved  Old  Heretics,  and  Muggleton's  works,  ;>^5S}w». 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  lo7 

the  two  differed  in  opinion,  they  were  popularly  classed  together 
as  canting  schismatics ;  and  whatever  was  ridiculous  or  odious 
in  either  increased  the  scorn  and  aversion  which  the  multitude 
felt  for  both. 

Before  the  civil  wars,  even  those  who  most  disliked  the 
opinions  and  manners  of  the  Puritan  were  forced  to  admit 
that  his  moral  conduct  was  generjilly,  in  essentials,  blameless  ; 
but  this  praise  was  now  no  longer  bestowed,  and,  unfortunately, 
was  no  longer  deserved.  The  general  fate  of  sects  is  to  obtain 
a  high  reputation  for  sanctity  while  they  are  oppressed,  and  to. 
lose  it  as  soon  as  they  become  powerful  :  and  the  reason  is  obvi- 
ous. It  is  seldom  that  a  man  enrolls  himself  in  a  proscribed 
body  from  any  but  conscientious  motives.  Such  a  body,  there- 
fore, is  composed,  with  sci^rcely  an  exception,  of  sincere  persons. 
The  most  rigid  discipline  tliat  can  be  enforced  within  a  religious 
society  is  a  very  feeble  instrument  of  purification,  when  com- 
pared with  a  little  sharp  persecution  from  without.  We  may 
be  certain  that  very  few  persons,  not  seriously  impressed  by 
religious  convictions,  applied  for  baptism  while  Diocletian  was 
vexing  the  Church,  or  joined  themselves  to  Protestant  con- 
sreoations  at  the  risk  of  benig  burned  by  Bonner.  But,  when 
a  sect  becomes  powerful,  when  its  favour  is  the  road  to  riches 
and  dignities,  worldly  and  ambitious  men  crowd  into  it,  talk  its 
language,  conform  strictly  to  its  ritual,  mimic  its  peculiarities, 
and  frequently  go  beyond  its  honest  members  in  all  the  outward 
indications  of  zeal.  No  discernment,  no  watchfulness,  on  the 
part  of  ecclesiastical  rulers,  can  pi'event  the  intrusion  of  such 
false  brethren.  The  tares  and  wheat  must  grow  together. 
Soon  the  world  begins  to  find  out  that  the  godly  are  not  better 
than  other  men,  and  argues,  with  some  justice,  that,  if  not  better, 
they  must  be  much  worse.  In  no  long  time  all  those  signs 
which  were  formerly  regarded  as  characteristic  of  a  saint  are 
regarded  as  characteristic  of  a  knave. 

Thus  it  was  with  the  English  Nonconformists.  They  had 
been  oppressed ;  and  oppression  had  kept  them  a  pure  body. 
They  then  became  supreme  in  the  state.  No  man  could  hope 
to  rise  to  eminence  and  command  but  By  their  favour.     Their 


158  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

favour  was  to  be  gained  only  by  exchanging  with  them  the 
signs  and  passwords  of  spiritual  fraternity.  One  of  the  first 
resolutions  adopted  by  Barebones'  Parliament,  the  mostintensely 
Puritanical  of  all  our  political  assemblies,  was  that  no  person 
should  be  admitted  into  the  public  service  till  the  House  should 
be  satisfied  of  his  real  godliness.  What  were  then  considered 
as  the  signs  of  real  godliness,  the  sadcoloured  dress,  the  sour 
look,  the  straight  hair,  the  nasal  whine,  the  speech  interspersed 
with  quaint  texts,  the  Sunday,  gloomy  as  a  Pharisaical  Sabbath, 
were  easily  imitated  by  men  to  whom  all  religions  were  the 
same.  The  sincere  Puritans  soon  found  themselves  lost  in  a 
multitude,  not  merely  of  men  of  the  world,  but  of  the  very  worst 
sort  of  men  of  the  world.  For  the  most  notorious  libertine  who 
had  fought  under  the  royal  standard  might  justly  be  thought 
virtuous  when  compared  with  some  of  those  who,  while  they 
talked  about  sweet  experiences  and  comfortable  scriptures,  lived 
in  the  constant  practice  of  fraud,  rapacity,  and  secret  de- 
bauchery. The  people,  with  a  rashness  which  we  may  justly 
lament,  but  at  which  we  cannot  wonder,  formed  their  estimate 
of  the  whole  body  from  these  hypocrites.  The  theology,  the 
manners,  the  dialect  of  the  Puritan  were  ihm  associated  in  the 
public  mind  with  the  darkest  and  meanest  vices.  As  soon  as 
the  Restoration  had  made  it  safe  to  avow  enmity  to  the  party 
which  had  so  long  been  predominant,  a  general  outcry  against 
Puritanism  rose  from  every  corner  of  the  kingdom,  and  was 
often  swollen  by  the  voices  of  those  very  dissemblers  whose 
villany  had  brought  disgrace  on  the  Puritan  name. 

Thus  the  two  great  parties,  which,  after  a  long  contest,  had  for 
a  moment  concurred  in  restoring  monarchy,  were,  both  in  poli- 
tics and  in  religion,  again  opposed  to  each  other.  The  great 
body  of  the  nation  leaned  to  the  Royalists.  The  crimes  of 
Straiford  and  Laud,  the  excesses  of  the  Star  Chamber  and  of 
the  High  Commission,  the  great  services  which  the  Long  Par- 
liament had,  during  the  first  year  of  its  existence,  rendered  to 
the  state,  had  faded  from  the  minds  of  men.  The  execution  of 
Charles  the  First,  the  syllen  tyranny  of  the  Rump,  the  violence 
of  the  army,  were  remembered  with  loathing ;  and  the  nudti- 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  159 

tude  was  inclined  to  hold  all  who  had  withstood  the  late  King, 
responsible  for  his  death  and  for  the  subsequent  disasters. 

The  House  of  Commons,  having  been  elected  while  the 
Presbyterians  were  dominant,  by  no  means  represented  the  gen- 
eral sense  of  the  people.  Most  of  the  members,  while  execra- 
ting Cromwell  and  Bradshaw,  reverenced  the  memory  of  Essex 
and  of  Pym.  One  sturdy  Cavalier,  who  ventured  to  declare 
that  all  who  had  drawn  the  sword  against  Charles  the  First 
were  as  much  traitors  as  those  who  had  aut  off  his  head,  was 
called  to  order,  placed  at  the  bar,  and  reprimanded  by  the 
Speaker.  The  general  wish  of  the  House  undoubtedly  was  to 
settle  the  ecclesiastical  disputes  in  a  manner  satisfactory  to  the 
moderate  Puritans.  But  to  such  a  settlement  both  the  court 
and  the  nation  were  avei'se. 

The  restored  King  was  at  this  time  more  loved  by  the  peo- 
ple than  any  of  his  predecessors  had  ever  been.  The  calamities 
of  his  house,  the  heroic  death  of  his  father,  his  own  long  suffer- 
ings and  romantic  adventures,  made  him  an  object  of  tender  inter- 
est. His  return  had  delivered  the  country  from  an  intolerable 
bondage.  Recalled  by  the  voice  of  both  the  contending  factions, 
he  was  in  a  position  which  enabled  him  to  arbitrate  between 
them  ;  and  in  some  respects  he  was  well  qualified  for  the  task. 
He  had  received  from  nature  excellent  parts  and  a  happy  tem- 
per. His  education  had  been  such  as  might  have  been  expected" 
to  develope  his  understanding,  and  to  form  him  to  the  practice 
of  every  public  and  private  virtue.  He  had  passed  through  all 
varieties  of  fortune,  and  had  seen  both  sides  of  human  nature. 
He  had, while  very  young,  been  driven  forth  from  a  palace  to  a  life 
of  exile,  penury,  and  danger.  He  had,  at  the  age  when  the  mind 
and  body  are  in  their  highest  perfection,  and  when  the  first 
effervescence  of  boyish  passions  should  have  subsided,  been  re- 
called from  his  wanderings  to  wear  a  crown.  He  had  been 
taught  by  bitter  experience  how  much  baseness,  perfidy,  and 
ingratitude  may  lie  hid  under  the  obsequious  demeanor  of 
courtiers.  He  had  found,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  huts  of  the 
poorest,  true  nobility  of  soul.  When  wealth  was  offered  to  any 
who  would  betray  him,  when  death  was  denounced  against  all 


160  «ISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

who  should  shelter  him,  cottagers  and  serving  men  haa  Kept  his 
secret  truly,  and  had  kissed  his  hand  under  his  naean  disguises 
with  as  much  reverence  as  if  he  had  been  seated  on  his  ancestral 
throne.  From  such  a  school  it  might  have  been  expected  that 
a  young  man  who  wanted  neither  abilities  nor  amiable  qualities 
would  have  come  forth  a  great  and  good  King.  Charles  came 
forth  from  that  school  with  social  habits,  with  polite  and  engaging 
manners,  and  with  some  talent  for  lively  conversation,  addicted 
beyond  measure  to  sensual  indulgence,  fond  of  sauntering  and 
of  frivolous  amusements,  incapable  of  selfdenial  and  of  exer- 
tion, without  faith  in  human  virtue  or  in  human  attachment, 
without  desire  of  renown,  and  without  sensibility  to  re- 
proach. According  to  him,  every  person  was  to  be  bought :  but 
some  people  haggled  more  about  their  price  than  others ;  and 
when  this  haggling  was  very  obstinate  and  very  skilful  it  was 
called  by  some  fine  name.  The  chief  trick  by  which  clever  men 
kept  up  the  price  of  their  abilities  was  called  integrity.  The 
chief  trick  by  which  handsome  women  kept  up  the  price  of  their 
beauty  was  called  modesty.  The  love  of  God,  the  love  of  coun- 
try, the  love  of  family,  the  love  of  friends,  were  phrases  of  the 
same  sort,  delicate  and  convenient  synonymes  for  the  love  of 
self.  Thinking  thus  of  mankind,  Charles  naturally  cared  very 
little  what  they  thought  of  him.  Honour  and  shame  were 
scarcely  more  to  him  than  light  and  darkness  to  the  blind.  His 
contempt  of  flattery  has  been  highly  commended,  but  seems, 
when  viewed  in  connection  with  the  rest  of  his  character,  to  de- 
serve no  commendation.  It  is  possible  to  be  below  flattery  as  well 
as  above  it.  One  who  trusts  nobody  will  not  trust  sycophants. 
One  who  does  not  value  real  glory  will  not  value  its  counterfeit. 
It  is  creditable  to  Charles's  temper  that,  ill  as  he  thought 
of  his  species,  he  never  became  a  misanthrope.  He  saw  little 
in  men  but  what  was  hateful.  Yet  l>e  did  not  hate  them.  Nay, 
hg  was  so  far  humane  that  it  was  highly  disagreeable  to  him  to 
see  their  sufferings  or  to  hear  their  complaints.  This,  how- 
ever, is  a  sort  of  humanity  which,  though  amiable  and  laudable 
in  a  private  man  whose  power  to  help  or  hurt  is  bounded  by  a 
narrow  circle,  has   in  princes  often  been  rather  a  vice   than  a 


TJNDER    CIIARLKS    THK    SECOND,  161 

virtue.  More  than  one  well  disposed  ruler  has  given  up  whole 
provinces  to  rapine  and  oppression,  merely  from  a  wish  to  see 
none  but  happy  faces  round  his  own  board  and  in  his  own 
walks.  No  man  is  fit  to  govern  great  societies  who  hesitates 
about  disobliging  the  few  who  have  access  to  him,  for  the  sake 
of  the  many  whom  he  will  never  see.  The  facility  of  Charles 
was  such  as  has  perhaps  never  been  found  in  any  man  of  equal 
sense.  He  was  a  slave  without  being  a  dupe.  Worthless  men 
and  women,  to  the  very  bottom  of  whose  hearts  he  saw,  and 
whom  he  knew  to  be  destitute  of  affection  for  him  and  unde- 
serving of  his  confidence,  could  easily  wheedle  him  out  of  titles, 
places,  domains,  state  secrets  and  pardons.  lie  bestowed  much; 
yet  he  neither  enjoyed  the  pleasure  nor  acquired  the  fame  of 
beneficence.  lie  never  gave  spontaneously;  but  it  was  painful 
to  him  to  refuse.  The  consequence  was  that  his  bounty  gen- 
erally went,  not  to  those  who  deserved  it  best,  nor  even  to 
those  whom  he  liked  best,  bui  to  the  most  shameless  and  im- 
portunate suitor  who  could  obtain  an  audience. 

The  motives  which  governed  the  political  conduct  of  Charles 
the  Second  differed  widely  from  those  by  which  his  predeces- 
sor and  his  successor  were  actuated.  He  was  not  a  man  to  be 
imposed  upon  by  the  patriarchal  theory  of  government  and  the 
doctrine,  of  divine  right.  He  was  utterly  without  ambition. 
Pie  detested  business,  and  wolild  sooner  have  abdicated  his 
crown  than  have  undergone  the  trouble  of  really  directing  the 
administration.  Such  was  his  aversion  to  toil,  and  such  his 
ignorance  of  affairs,  that  the  very  clerks  who  attended  him 
when  he  sate  in  council  could  not  refrain  from  sneering  at  his 
frivolous  remarks,  and  at  his  childish  impatience.  Neither 
gratitude  nor  revenge  had  any  share  in  determining  his  course ; 
for  never  was  there  a  mind  on  which  both  services  and  injuries 
left  such  faint  and  transitory  impressions.  He  wished  merely 
to  be  a  King  such  as  Lewis  the  Fifteenth  of  France  afterwards 
was  ;  a  King  who  could  draw  without  limit  on  the  treasury  for 
the  gratification  of  his  private  tastes,  who  could  hire  with 
wealth  and  honours  persons  capable  of  assisting  him  to  kill  the 
time,  and  who,  even  when  the   state  was  brought  by  maladmin- 


162  HISTORY    or    ENGLAND. 

istration  to  the  depths  of  humiliation  and  to  the  brink  of  ruin, 
could  still  exclude  unwelcome   truth  from  the  purlieus  of  his 
own  -  seraglio,  and  refuse   to  see  and  hear  whatever  might  dis- 
turb his  luxurious  repose.     For  these   ends,  and  for  these  ends 
alone,  he  wished  to   obtain   arbitrary  power,  if  it  could  be   ob- 
tained without  risk  or  trouble.     In  the  religious  disputes  which 
divided  his  Protestant  subjects  his  conscience  was  not  at  all  in- 
terested.    For  his  opinions  oscillated  in  contented  suspense  be- 
tween infidelity  and  Popery.      But,  though  his  conscience  was 
neutral  in  the  quarrel  between  the  Episcopalians  and  the  Pres- 
byterians, his   taste  was  by  no   means   so.     His  favourite  vices 
were   precisely  those   to  which  the   Puritans  were  least  indul- 
gent.    He  could  not  get  through  one  day  without  the   help  of 
diversions  which  the  Puritans  regarded  as  sinful.     As   a  man 
eminently  well  bred,  and  keenly  sensible   of   the  ridiculous,  he 
was  moved  to  contemptuous  mnth  by  the  Puritan  oddities.    He 
had  indeed   some  reason  to  dislike   the   rigid  sect.     He  had,  at 
the  age  when  the  passions  are  most  impetuous  and  when  levity 
is  most  pardonable,  spent  some   months  in  Scotland,  a  King  in 
name,  but  in  fact  a  state  prisoner  in  the  hands  of  austere  Pres- 
byterians.    Not  content  with  requiring  him  to  conform  to  their 
worship  and  to   subscribe  their  Covenant,  they  had  watched  all 
his  motions,  and  lectured   him  on  all   his  youthful  follias.     He 
had   been   compelled   to  give   reluctant  attendance   at  endless 
prayers  and   sermons,  and  might  think  himself  fortunate  when 
he  was  not  insolently  reminded  from  the  pulpit  of  his  own  frail- 
ties, of  his  father's  tyranny,  and  of  his  mother's  idolatry.     In- 
deed he  had  been  so  miserable  during  this  part  of  his  life  that 
the  defeat  which  made  him  again  a  wanderer  might  be  regarded 
as  a  deliverance  rather  than  as   a   calamity.     Under  the  influ- 
ence of  such  feelings  as  these  Charles  was  desirous  to  depress 
the  party  which  had  resisted  his  father. 

The  King's  brother,  James  Duke  of  York,  took  the  same 
side.  Though  a  libertine,  James  was  diligent,  methodical, 
and  fond  of  authority  and  business.  His  understanding  was 
singularly  slow  and  narrow,  and  his  temper  obstinate,  harsh, 
and  unforgiving.     That  such  a  prince  should  have  looked  with 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECON  163 

no  good  will  on  the  free  institutions  of  England,  and  on  the 
party  which  was  peculiarly  zealous  for  those  institutions,  can 
excite  no  surprise.  As  yet  the  Duke  professed  himself  a  mem' 
ber  of  the  Anglican  Church  :  but  he  had  already  shown  inclina- 
tions which  liad  seriously  alarmed  good  Protestants. 

The  person  on  wjiom  devolved  at  this  time  the  greatest  part 
of  the  labour  oi  governing  was  Edward  Hyde,  Chancellor  of  the 
x'ealm,  who  was  soon  created  Earl  of  Clarendon.  The  respect 
which  we  justly  feel  for  Clarendon  as  a  writer  must  not  blind 
us  to  the  laults  which  he  committed  as  a  statesman.  Some  of 
those  faults,  however,  are  explained  and  excused  by  the  unfor- 
tunate position  in  which  he  stood.  He  liad,  during  the  first  year 
of  the  Long  Parliament,  been  honourably  distinguished  among 
the  senators  who  laboured  to  redress  the  grievances  of  the 
nation.  Oneof  the  most  odious  of  those  grievances,  the  Coun- 
cil of  York,  had  been  removed  in  consequence  chiefly  of  his 
exertions.  When  the  great  schism  took  place,  when  the  reform- 
ing party  and  the  conservative  party  first  appeared  marshalled 
against  each  other,  he,  with  many  wise  and  good  men,  took 
the  conservative  side.  He  thenceforward  followed  the  fortunes 
of  the  court,  enjoyed  as  large  a  share  of  the  confidence  of  Charles 
the  First  as  the  reserved  nature  and  tortuous  policy  of  that 
prince  allowed  to  any  minister,  and  subsequently  shared  the 
exile  and  directed  the  political  conduct  of  Charles  the  Second. 
At  the  Restoration  Hyde  became  chief  minister.  In  a  few 
months  it  was  announced  that  he  was  closely  related  by  aflfjnity 
to  the  royal  house.  His  daughter  had  become,  by  a  secret  mar- 
riage. Duchess  of  York.  His  grandchildren  might  perhaps  wear 
the  crown.  He  was  raised  by  this  illustrious  connection  over 
the  heads  of  the  old  nobility  of  the  land,  and  was  for  a  time 
supposed  to  be  allpowerful.  In  some  respects  he  was  well  fitted 
for  his  great  place.  No  man  wrote  abler  state  papers.  No 
man  spoke  with  more  weight  and  dignity  in  Council  and  in 
Parliament.  No  man  was  better  acquainted  with  general 
maxims  of  statecraft.  No  man  observed  the  varieties  of  charac- 
ter with  a  more  discriminating  eye.  It  must  be  added  that  he 
bad  a  strong  sense  of  moral  ^nd  religious  obligation,  a  sincere 


164  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

reverence  for  the  laws  of  his  country,  and  a  conscientious  regard 
for  the  honour  and  interest  of  the  Crown.  But  his  temper  was 
sour,  arrogant,  and  impatient  of  opposition.  Above  all,  he  had 
been  long  an  exile  ;  and  this  circumstance  alone  would  have 
completely  disqualified  him  for  the  supreme  direction  of  affairs. 
It  is  scarcely  possible  that  a  politician,  wjio  has  been  compelled 
by  civil  troubles  to  go  into  banishment,  and  to  pass  many  of  the 
best  years  of  his  life  abroad,  can  be  fit,  on  the  day  on  which  he 
returns  to  his  native  land,  to  be  at  the  head  of  the  government. 
Clarendon  was  no  exception  to  this  rule.  He  had  left  England 
with  a  mind  heated  by  a  fierce  conflict  which  had  ended  in  the 
downfall  of  his  party  and  of  his  own  fortunes.  From  1 646  to 
1660  he  had  lived  beyond  sea,  looking  on  all  that  passed  at 
home  from  a  great  distance,  and  through  a  false  medium.  His 
notions  of  public  affairs  were  necessarily  derived  from  the  reports 
of  plotters,  many  of  whom  were  ruined  and  desperate  men. 
Events  naturally  seemed  to  him  auspicious,  not  in  proportion  as 
they  increased  the  prosperity  and  glory  of  the  nation,  but  in 
proportion  as  they  tended  to  hasten  the  hour  of  his  own  return. 
His  wish,  a  wish  which  he  has  not  disguised,  was  that,  till  his 
countrymen  brought  back  the  old  line,  they  might  never  enjoy 
quiet  or  freedom.  At  length  he  returned  ;  and,  without  having 
a  single  week  to  look  about  him,  to  mix  with  society,  to  note  the 
changes  which  fourteen  eventful  years  had  produced  in  the 
national  character  and  feelings,  he  was  at  once  set  to  rule  the 
state.  In  such  circumstances,  a  minister  of  the  greatest  tact  and 
docility  would  probably  have  fallen  into  serious  errors.  But 
tact  and  docility  made  no  part  of  the  character  of  Clarendon. 
To  him  England  was  still  the  England  of  his  youth ;  and  he 
sternly  frowned  down  every  theory  and  every  practice  which 
had  sprung  up  during  his  own  exile.  Though  ho- was  far  from 
meditating  any  attack  on  the  ancient  and  undoubted  power  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  he  saw-  with  extreme  uneasiness  the 
growth  of  that  power.  The  royal  prerogative,  for  which  he  had 
long  suffered,  and  by  which  he  had  at  length  been  raised  to 
wealth  and  dignity,  was  sacred  in  his  eyes.  The  Roundheads 
he  regarded  both  with  political  and  with  personal  aversion.     To 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND. 


165 


the  Anglican  Church  he  had  always  been  strongly  attached, 
and  had  repeatedly,  where  her  interests  were  concerned, 
separated  himself  with  regret  from  his  dearest  friends.  His  zeal 
for  Episcopacy  and  for  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  was  now 
more  ardent  than  ever,  and  was  mingled  with  a  vindictive  hatred 
of  the  Puritans,  which  did  him  little  honour  either  as  a  states- 
man or  as  a  Christian. 

While  the  House  of  Commons  which  had  recalled  the  royal 
family  was  sitting,  it  was   impossible  to  effect  the  re-establish- 
ment of  the  old  ecclesiastical  system.     Not  only  were  the  inten- 
tions of  the  court  strictly  concealed,  but   as'surances  which  qui- 
eted the  minds   of  the  moderate   Presbyterians  were  given  by 
the  King  in  the  most  solemn  manner.    He  had  promised,  before 
his  restoration,  that  he  would  grant  liberty  of  conscience  to  his 
subjects.     He  now  repeated  that  promise,  and  added  a  promise 
to  use  his  best  endeavours  for  the  purpose  of  effecting  a  compro- 
mise between  the  contending  sects.     He  wished,  he  said,  to  see 
the  spiritual  jurisdiction  divided  between  bishops   and   synods. 
The  Liturgy   should  be  revised  by  a  body  of  learned  divines, 
one-half  of  whom    should    be    Presbyterians.       The  questions 
respecting  the  surplice,  the   posture  at  the   Eucharist,  and  the 
sign   of  the  cross  in  baptism,  should  be  settled  in  a  way  which 
would  set  tender  consciences  at  ease.    When  the  King  had  thus 
laid  asleep  the  vigilance  of  those  whom  he  most  feared,  he  dis- 
solved the  Pai-liament.     He  had  already  given  his  assent  to  an 
act  by  which  an  amnesty  was  granted,  with  few  exceptions,  to 
all  who,  during  the  late   troubles,  had  been  guilty  of  political 
offences.     He  had  also  obtained  from  the  Commons  a  grant  for 
life  of  taxes,  the  annual  product  of  which  was  estimated  at  twelve 
hundred  thousand  pounds.     The  actual   income,  indeed,  during 
some  years,  amounted   to  little  more   than  a  million  :  but  this 
sum,  together  with   the  hereditary  revenue  of  the   crown,  was 
then  sufficient  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the  government  in  time 
of  peace.      Nothing   was   allowed  for  a  standing  army.     The 
nation  was   sick   of  the  very  name ;  and   the   least   mention   of 
such  a  force  would  have  incensed  and  alarmed  all  parties 

Early  in  1661  took  place  a  general  election.     The  peoplo 


16{^  HISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND. 

were  mad  with  loyal  enthusiasm.  The  capital  was  excited  by 
preparations  for  the  most  splendid  coronation  that  had  ever 
been  known.  The  result  was  that  a  body  of  representatives 
was  returned,  such  as  England  had  never  yet  seen.  A  large 
proportion  of  the  successful  candidates  were  men  who  had 
foLiuht  for  the  Crown  and  the  Church,  and  whose  minds  had  been 
exasperated  by  many  injuries  and  insults  suffered  at  the  hands 
of  the  Roundheads.  When  the  members  met,  the  passions 
which  animated  each  individually  acquired  new  strength  from 
sympathy.  Tlie  House  of  Commons  was,  during  some  years, 
more  zealous  for  royalty  than  the  King,  more  zealous  for  epis- 
copacy than  the  Bishops.  Charles  and  Clarendon  were  almost 
terrified  at  the  completeness  of  their  own  success.  They  found 
themselves  in  a  situation  not  unlike  that  in  wliich  Lewis  the 
Eighteenth  and  the  Duke  of  Richelieu  were  placed  while  the 
Chamber  of  1815  was  sitting.  Even  if  the  King  had  been 
desirous  to  fulfil  the  promises  which  he  had  made  to  the  Pres- 
byterians, it  would  have  been  out  of  his  power  to  do  so.  It 
was  indeed  only  by  the  strong  exertion  of  his  influence  that  he 
could  prevent  the  victorious  Cavaliers  from  rescinding  the  act 
of  indemnity,  and  retaliating  v/ithout  mercy  all  that  they  had 
suffered. 

The  Commons  began  by  resolving  that  every  member  sliould, 
on  pain  of  expulsion,  take  the  sacrament  according  to  the  form 
prescribed  by  the  old  Liturgy,  and  that  the  Covenant  should  be 
burned  by  the  hangman  in  Palace  Yard.  An  act  was  passed, 
which  not  only  acknowledged  the  power  of  the  sword  to  be 
solely  in  the  King,  but  declared  that  in  no  extremity  whatever 
could  the  two  Houses  be  justified  in  withstanding  him  by  force. 
Anotlier  act  was  passed  which  required  every  officer  of  a  cor- 
poration to  receive  the  Eucharist  according  to  the  rites  of  the 
Church  of  Eno[land,  and  to  swear  that  he  held  resistance  to  the 
King's  authority  to  be  in  all  cases  unlawful.  A  few  hotheaded 
men  wished  to  bring  in  a  bill,  which  should  at  once  annul  all  the 
statutes  passed  by  the  Long  Parliament,  and  should  restore  the 
Star  Chamber  and  the  High  Commission  ;  but  the  reaction,  vio- 
lent  as  it  was,  did  not  proceed  quite  to  this  length.    It  still  con- 


UNDKR    CHARLES    TIIK    SICCOND.  167 

tinued  to  be  the  law  that  a  Parliament  should  be  held  every 
three  yeai's  :  but  the  stringent  clauses  which  directed  the  return- 
ing officers  to  proceed  to  election  at  the  proper  time,  even  with- 
out the  royal  writ,  were  repealed.  The  Bishops  were  restored 
to  their  seats  in  the  Upper  House.  The  old  ecclesiastical  pol- 
ity and  the  old  Liturgy  were  revived  without  any  modification 
which  had  any  tendency  to  conciliate  even  the  most  reasonable 
Presbyterians.  Episcopal  ordination  was  now,  for  the  first 
time,  made  an  indispensable  qualification  for  church  2:)i"eferment. 
About  two.  thousand  ministers  of  religion,  whose  conscience 
did  not  suffer  them  to  conform,  were  driven  from  their  benefices 
in  one  day.  The  dominant  party  exultingly  reminded  the  suf- 
ferers that  the  Long  Parliament,  when  at  the  height  of  power, 
had  turned  out  a  still  greater  number  of  Royalist  divines. 
The  reproach  was  but  too  well  founded  :  but  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment had  at  least  allowed  to  the  divines  whom  it  ejected  a 
provision  sufficient  to  keep  them  from  starving ;  and  this  exam- 
ple the  Cavaliers,  intoxicated  with  animosity,  had  not  the  jus- 
tice and  humanity  to  follow. 

Then  came  penal  statutes  against  Noncouxormists,  statutes 
for  which  precedents  might  too   easily  be  found  in  the  Puritan 
legislation,  but  to  which   the  King  could  not  give  his  assent 
without  a  breach  of  promises  publicly  made,  in  the  most  impor- 
tant crisis  of  his   life,  to   those   on  whom  his  fate  depended. 
The  Presbyterians,  in  extreme  distress   and  terror,  fled  to  the 
f<oot  of  the  throne,  and  pleaded  their  recent  services  and  the 
i  ayal    faith    solemnly    and    repeatedl}    plighted.     The    King 
%i  avered.     He  could   not  deny  his    own   hand   and   seal.     He 
CO  old  not  but  be  conscious  that  he  owed  much  to  the  petitioners. 
He  was  little  in  the  habit  of   resisting  importunate  solicitation. 
H^S!  temper  was   not   that  of  a   persecutor.     He   disliked  the 
Puritans  indeed;  but  in  him  dislike  was  a  languid  feeling,  very 
little  resembling  the  energetic  hatred  which  had  burned  in  the 
heart   of    Laud.     He   was,   moreover,   partial    to    the    Roman 
Catholic  religion  ;  and  he  knew  that  it  would  be  impossible  to 
grant  liberty  of  worship  to  the  professors  of  that  religion  with- 
out extending  the  same  indulg^ace  to  Protestant  dissenters. 

t 


168  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

He  therefore  made  a  feeble  attempt  to  restrain  tlie  intolerant 
zeal  of  the  House  of  Commons  ;  but  that  House  was  under  the 
influence  of  far  deeper  convictions  and  far  stronger  passions 
than  his  own.  After  a  faint  struggle  he  yielded,  and  passed, 
with  the  show  of  alacrity,  a  series  of  odious. acts  against  the 
separatists.  It  was  made  a  crime  to  attend  a  dissenting  plate 
of  worship.  A  single  justice  of  the  peace  might  convict  without 
a  jury,  and  might,  for  the  third  offence,  pass  sentence  of  trans- 
portation beyond  sea  for  seven  years.  With  refined  cruelty  it 
was  provided  that  the  offender  should  not  be  trajisported  to 
New  England,  where  he  was  likely  to  find  sympathising  friends. 
If  he  returned  to  his  own  country  before  the  expiration  of  his 
term  of  exile,  he  was  liable  to  capital  punishment.  A  new  and 
most  unreasonable  test  was  imposed  on  divines  who  had  been 
deprived  of  their  benefices  for  nonconformity  ;  and  all  who 
refused  to  take  that  test  were  prohibited  from  coming  within 
five  miles  of  any  town  which  was  governed  by  a  corporation,  of 
any  town  which  was  represented  in  Parliament,  or  of  any  town 
where  they  had  themselves  resided  as  ministers.  The  magis- 
trates, by  whom  these  rigorous  statutes  were  to  be  enforced, 
were  in  general  men  inflamed  by  party  spii'it  and  by  the  re- 
membrance of  wrongs  suffered  in  the  time  of  the  commonwealth. 
The  gaols  were  therefore  soon  crowded  with  dissentei's  ;  and, 
among  the  sufferers,  were  some  of  whose  genius  and  virtue  any 
Christian  society  might  well  be  proud. 

The  Church  of  England  was  not  iingrateful  for  the  protec- 
tion which  she  received  from  the  government.  From  the  first 
day  of  her  existence,  she  had  been  attached  to  monarchy. 
But,  during  the  quarter  of  a  century  which  followed  the  Restor- 
ation, her  zeal  for  royal  authority  and  hereditary  right  passed 
all  bounds.  She  had  suffered  with  the  House  of  Stuart. 
She  had  been  restored  with  that  House.  She  was  connected 
with  it  by  common  interests,  friendships,  and  enmities,  It 
seemed  impossible  that  a  day  could  ever  come  when  the  ties 
which  bound  her  to  the  children  of  her  august  martyr  would  be 
sundered,  and  when  the  loyalty  in  which  she  gloried  would 
cease  to  be  a  pleasing  and  profitable  duty.     She  accordingly 

t 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  169 

magnified  in  fulsome  phrase  that  prerogative  which  was  con- 
stantly employed  to  defend  and  to  aggrandise  her,  and  repro- 
bated, much  at  her  ease,  the  depravity  of  those  whom  oppres- 
sion, from  which  she  was  exempt,  had  goaded  to  rebellion. 
Her  favourite  theme  was  the  doctrine  of  non-resistance.  That 
doctrine  she  taught  without  any  qualification ,  and  followed 
out  to  all  its  extreme  consequences.  Her  disciples  were  never 
weary  of  repeating  that  in  no  conceivable  case,  not  even  if 
England  were  cursed  with  a  King  resembling  Busiris  or 
Phalaris,  with  a  King  who,  in  defiance  of  law,  and  without  the 
pretence  of  justice^  should  daily  doom  huudi'eds  of  innocent 
victims  to  torture  and  death,  would  all  the  Estates  of  the  realm 
united  be  justified  in  withstanding  his  tyranny  by  physical 
force.  Happily  the  principles  of  human  nature  afford  abundant 
security  that  such  theories  will  never  be  more  than  theories. 
The  day  of  trial  came ;  and  the  very  men  who  had  most  loudly 
and  most  sincerely  professed  this  extravagant  loyalty  were,  in 
every  county  of  England  arrayed  in  arms  against  the  throne. 

Property  all  over  the  kingdom  was  now  again  changing 
hands.  The  national  sales,  not  having  been  confirmed  by  Act 
of  Parliament,  were  regarded  by  'the  tribunals  as  nullities. 
The  bishops,  the  deans,  the  chapters,  the  Royalist  nobility 
and  gentry,  reentered  on  their  confiscated  estates,  and  ejected 
even  purchasers  who  had  given  fair  prices.  The  losses  which 
the  Cavaliers  had  sustained  during  the  ascendency  of  their 
opponents  were  thus  in  part  repaired  ;  but  in  part  only.  All 
actions  for  mesne  profits  were  effectually  barred  by  the  general 
amnesty  ;  and  the  numerous  Royalists,  who,  in  order  to  discharge 
fines  imposed  by  the  Long  Parliament,  or  in  order  to  purchase 
the  favour  of  powerful  Roundheads,  had  sold  lands  for  much 
less  than  the  real  value,  were  not  relieved  from  the  legal  con- 
sequences of  their  own  acts. 

While  these  changes  were  in  progress,  a  change  still  more 
important  took  place  in  the  morals  and  manners  of  the  com- 
munity. Those  passions  and  tastes  which,  under  the  rule  of 
the  Puritans,  had  been  sternly  repressed,  and,  if  gratified  at  all, 
had  been  gratified  by  stealth,  broke  forth  with  ungovernable 


170  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

violence  as  soou  as  the  check  was   withdrawn.     Men  flew  to 
frivolous  amusements  and  to  criminal  pleasures  with  the  greedi- 
ness which  long   and  enforced  abstinence  naturally   produces. 
Little  restraint  was  imposed  by  public  opinion.    For  the  nation, 
nauseated   with  cant,  suspicious  of  all   pretensions  to  sanctity, 
and  still  smarting  from  the  recent  tyranny  of   rulers  austere  in 
life  and  powerful  in  prayer,  looked  for  a  time  with  complacency 
on  the  softer  and  gayer  vices.     Still  less  restraint  was  imposed 
by  the  government.     Indeed   there  was  no  excess   which  was 
not  encouraged  by  the  ostentatious  profligacy  of  the  King  and 
of  his   favourite  courtiers.     A  few   counsellors   of  Charles  the 
First,  who  wei-e   now  no   longer  young,  retained   the   decorous 
gravity  which  had  been  thn-ty  years  before  in  fashion  at  White- 
hall.    Such   were  Clarendon   himself,  and  his   friends,  Thomas 
Wriothesley,  Earl  of  Southampton,  Lord  Treasurer,  and  James 
Butler,  Duke  of  Ormond,  who,  having  through  many  vicissitudes 
struggled  gallantly  for  the  royal  cause  in  Ireland,  now  governed 
that  kingdom  as  Lord  Lieutenant.      But  neither  the  memory  of 
the  services  of   these  men,  nor   their  great  power  in  the  state, 
could  protect  them  from  the  sarcasms  which  modish  vice  loves 
to  daft  at  obsolete  virtue.  The  praise  of  politeness  and  vivacity 
could  now   scarcely  be   obtained   except  by  some   violation   of 
decorum.      Talents  great  and  various   assisted   to   spread   the 
contagion.     Ethical  philosophy  had  recently  taken  a  form  well 
suited  to  please  a  generation   equally  devoted  to  monarchy  and 
to   vice.     Thomas   Hobbes  had,  in  language   more  precise  and 
luminous  than  has  ever  been  employed  by  any  other  metaphysi- 
cal writer,  maintained  that  the  will  of  the  prince  was  the  stand- 
ard of  right   and  wrong,  and   that  every  subject  ought  to  be 
ready  to  profess  Popery,  Mahometanism,  or  Paganism,  at  the 
royal  command.  Thousands  who  were  incompetent  to  appreciate 
what  was  really  valuable  in  his  speculations,  eagerly  welcomed 
a  theory  which,  while  it  exalted  the  kingly  office,  relaxed   the 
obligations   of  morality,    and  degraded    religion   into   a  mere 
affair  of  state.     Ilobbism   soon  became  an  almost  essential  part 
of  the  character  of  the  flne  ffontleman.    All  the  lighter  kinds  of 
literature  were  deeply  tainted  by  the  prevailing  liceutiousness. 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  171 

Poetry  stooped  to  be  the  pandar  of  every  low  desire.  Ridicule, 
instead  of  putting  guilt  and  error  to  the  blush,  turned  her  for- 
midable shafts  against  innocence  and  truth.  The  restored 
Church  contended  indeed  against  the  prevailing  immorality, 
but  contended  feebly,  and  vpith  half  a  heart.  It  was  necessary 
to  the  decorum  of  her  character  that  she  should  admonish  her 
erring  children  :  but  her  admonitions  were  given  in  a  some- 
what perfunctory  manner^  Her  attention  was  elsewhere  en- 
gaged. Her  whole  soul  was  in  the  work  of  crushing  the  Puri« 
tans,  and  of  teaching  her  disciples  to  give  unto  Ctesar  the  things 
which  were  Caesar's.  She  had  been  pillaged  and  oppressed  by 
the  party  which  preached  an  austere  morality.  She  had  been 
restored  to  opulence  and  honour  by  libertines.  Little  as  the 
men  of  mirth  and  fashion  were  disposed  to  shape  their  lives 
according  to  her  precepts,  they  were  yet  ready  to  fight  knee 
deep  in  blood  for  her  cathedrals  and  places,  for  every  line  of 
her  rubric  and  every  thread  of  her  vestments.  If  the  debauched 
Cavalier  haunted  brothels  and  gambling  houses,  he  at  least 
avoided  conventicles.  If  he  never  spoke  without  uttering 
ribaldry  and  blasphemy,  he  made  some  amends  by  his  eagerness 
to  send  Baxter  and  Howe  to  gaol  for  preaching  and  praying. 
Thus  the  clergy,  for  a  time,  made  war  on  schism  with  so  much 
vigour  that  they  had  little  leisure  to  make  war  on  vice.  The 
ribaldry  of  Etherege  and  Wycherley  was,  in  the  presence  and 
under  the  special  sanction  of  the  head  of  the  Church,  publicly 
recited  by  female  lips  in  female  ears,  while  the  author  of  the 
Pilgrim's  Progress  languished  in  a  dungeon  for  the  crime  of 
proclaiming  the  gospel  to  the  poor.  It  is  an  unquestionable 
and  a  most  instructive  fact  that  the  years  during  which  the 
political  power  of  the  Anglican  hierarchy  was  in  the  zenith 
were  precisely  the  years  during  which  national  virtue  was  at 
the  lowest  point. 

Scarcely  any  rank  or  profession  escaped  the  infection  of 
the  prevailing  immorality  ;  but  those  persons  who  made  politics 
their  business  were  perhaps  the  most  corrupt  part  of  the  corrupt 
society.  For  they  were  exposed,  not  only  to  the  same  noxious 
influences  which  affected  the    nation  generally,  but  also  to  a 


172  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

taint  of  a  peculiar  and  of  a  most  malignant  kind.  Their  char« 
acter  had  been  formed  amidst  frequent  and  violent  revolutions 
and  counterrevolutions.  In  the  course  of  a  few  years  they  had 
seen  the  ecclesiastical  and  civil  polity  of  their  country  repeatedly 
changed.  They  had  seen  an  Episcopal  Church  persecuting 
Puritans,  a  Puritan  Church  persecuting  Episcopalians,  and  an 
Episcopal  Church  persecuting  Puritans  again.  They  had  seen 
hereditary  monarchy  abolished  and  restored.  They  had  seea 
the  Long  Parliament  thi-ice  supreme  in  the  state,  and  thrice 
dissolved  amidst  the  curses  and  laughter  of  millions.  They, 
had  seen  a  new  dynasty  rapidly  rising  to  the  height  of  power 
and  glory,  and  then  on  a  sudden  hurled  down  from  the  chair  of 
state  without  a  struggle.  They  had  seen  a  new  representative 
system  devised,  tried  and  abandoned.  They  had  seen  a  new 
House  of  Lords  created  and  scattered.  They  had  seen  great 
masses  of  property  violently  transferred  from  Cavaliers  to 
Roundheads,  and  from  Roundheads  back  to  Cavaliers.  During 
these  events  no  man  could  be  a  stirring  and  thriving  politician 
who  was  not  prepared  to  change  with  every  change  of  fortune. 
It  was  only  in  retirement  that  any  person  could  long  keep  the 
character  either  of  a  steady  Royalist  or  of  a  steady  Republican. 
One  who,  in  such  an  age,  is  determined  to  attain  civil  greatness 
must  renounce  all  thoughts  of  consistency.  Instead  of  affecting 
immutability  in  the  midst  of  endless  mutation,  he  must  be  always 
on  the  watch  for  the  indications  of  a  cominw  reaction.  He  must 
seize  the  exact  moment  for  desertinsr  a  fallins:  cause.  Having 
gone  all  lengths  with  a  faction  while  it  was  uppermost,  he  must 
suddenly  extricate  himself  from  it  when  its  difficulties  begin, 
must  assail  it,  must  persecute  it,  must  enter  on  a  nev/  career  of 
power  and  prosperity  in  company  with  new  associates.  His 
situation  naturally  developes  in  him  to  the  highest  degree  a 
peculiar  class  of  abilities  and  a  peculiar  class  of  vices.  He 
becomes  quick  of  observation  and  fertile  of  resource.  He 
catches  without  effort  the  tone  of  any  sect  or  party  with  which 
he  chances  to  mingle.  He  discerns  the  signs  of  the  times  with  a 
sagacity  which  to  the  multitude  appears  miraculous,  with  a 
sagacity   resembling   that   with   which  a  veteran   police  officei 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND,  173 

pursues  the  faintest  indications  of  crime,  or  with  which  a 
Mohawk  warrior  follows  a  track  through  tlie  woods.  But  we 
shall  seldom  find,  in  a  state-sman  so  trained,  integrity,  constancy, 
any  of  the  virtues  of  the  noble  family  of  Truth,  He  has  no 
faith  in  any  doctrine,  no  zeal  for  any  cause.  He  has  seen  so 
many  old  institutions  swept  away,  that  lie  has  no  reverence  for 
prescription.  He  has  seen  so  many  new  institutions,  from 
which  much  had  heen  expected,  produce  mere  disappointment, 
that  he  has  no  hope  of  improvement.  He  sneers  alike  at  those 
who  are  anxious  to  preserve  and  at  those  who  are  eager  to 
reform.  There  is  nothing  in  the  state  which  he  could  not,  with- 
out a  scruple  or  a  blush,  join  in  defending  or  in  destroying. 
Fidelity  to  opinions  and  to  friends  seems  to  him  mere  duhiess 
and  wrongheadedness.  Politics  he  regards,  not  as  a  science  of 
which  the  object  is  the  happiness  of  mankind,  but  as  an  exciting 
game  of  mixed  chance  and  skill,  at  which  a  dexterous  and  lucky 
player  may  win  an  estate,  a  coronet,  perhaps  a  crown,  and  at 
which  one  rash  move  may  lead  to  the  loss  of  fortune  and  of 
life.  Ambition,  which,  in  good  times,  and  in  good  minds,  is 
half  a  virtue,  now,  disjoined  from  every  elevated  and  philan- 
thropic sentiment,  becomes  a  selfish  cupidity  scarcely  less  ignoble 
than  avarice.  Among  those  politicians  who,  from  the  Restora- 
tion to  the  accession  of  the  House  of  Hanover,  were  at  the  head 
of  the  great  parties  in  the  state,  very  few  can  be  named  whose 
reputation  is  not  stained  by  what,  in  our  age,  would  be  called 
gross  perfidy  and  corruption.  It  is  scarcely  an  exaggeration  to 
say  that  the  most  unprincipled  public  men  who  have  taken  part 
in  affairs  within  our  memory  would,  if  tried  by  the  standard 
which  was  in  fashion  during  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  deserve  to  be  regarded  as  scrupulous  and  dismterested. 
While  these  political,  religious,  and  moral  changes  were 
taking  place  in  England,  the  Royal  authority  had  been  without 
difficulty  reestablished  in  every  other  part  of  the  British  islands. 
In  Scotland  the  restoration  of  the  Stuarts  had  been  hailed  with 
delicfht ,  for  it  was  resfarded  as  the  restoration  of  national  inde- 
pendence.  And  true  it  was  that  the  yoke  which  Cromwell  had 
imposed    was,   in   appearance,  taken   away,  that  the    Scottish 


174  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

Estates  again  met  iu  their  old  hall  at  Edinburgh,  and  that  thtt 
Senators  of  the  College  of  Justice  again  administered  the  Scot- 
tish law  according  to  the  old  forms.  Yet  was  the  independence 
of  the  little  kingdom  necessarily  rather  nominal  than  real  ;  for, 
ae  long  as  the  King  had  England  on  his  side,  he  had  nothing  to 
apprehend  from  disaSectiou  in  his  other  dominions.  He  was 
now  in  such  a  situation  that  he  could  renew  the  attempt  which 
had  proved  destructive  to  his  father  without  any  danger  of  his 
father's  fate.  Charles  the  First  had  tried  to  force  his  own 
religion  by  his  regal  power  on  the  Scots  at  a  moment  when 
both  his  religion  and  his  regal  power  were  unpopular  in  Eng- 
land; and  he  had  not  only  failed,  but  had  raised  troubles  which 
had  ultimately  cost  him  his  crown  and  his  head.  Times  had 
now  changed :  England  was  zealous  for  monarchy  and  prelacy  ; 
and  therefore  the  scheme  which  had  formerly  been  in  the  highest 
degree  imprudent  might  be  resumed  with  little  risk  to  the  throne. 
The  government  resolved  to  set  up  a  prelatical  church  iu  Scot- 
land. The  design  was  disapproved  by  every  Scotchman  whose 
judgment  was  entitled  to  respect.  Some  Scottish  statesmen  who 
were  zealous  for  the  King's  prerogative  had  been  bred  Presby- 
terians. Though  little  troubled  with  scruples,  they  retained  a 
preference  for  the  religion  of  their  childhood ;  and  they  well 
knew  how  stron<T  a  hold  that  religion  had  on  the  hef^vts  of  their 
countrymen.  They  remonstrated  strongly  :  but,  when  they 
found  that  they  remonstrated  in  vain,  they  had  not,  virtue  enough 
to  persist  in  an  oppositjon  which  would  have  given  offence  to 
their  master;  and  several  of  them  stooped  to  the  wickedness 
and  baseness  of  persecuting  what  in  their  consciences  they 
believed  to  be  the  purest  form  of  Christianity.  The  Scottish 
Parliament  was  so  constituted  that  it  had  scarcely  ever  offered 
any  serious  oi^position  even  to  Kings  much  weaker  than  Charles 
then  was.  Episcopacy,  therefore,  was  established  by  law.  As 
to  the  form  of  worship,  a  large  discretion  was  left  to  the  clergy. 
In  some  churches  the  English  Liturgy  was  used.  In  others, 
the  ministers  selected  from  that  Liturgy  such  prayers  and 
thanksgivings  as  were  likely  to  be  least  offensive  to  the  people. 
But  in  general  the  doxology  was  sung  at  the  close  of  public 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  175 

worship ;  and  the  Apostles'  Creed  was  recited  when  baptism 
was  administered.  By  the  great  body  of  the  Scottish  nation  the 
new  Church  was  detested  both  as  superstitious  and  as  foreign  ; 
as  tainted  with  the  corruptions  of  Rome,  and  as  a  mark  of  the 
predominance  of  England.  There  was,  however,  no  general 
insurrection.  The  country  was  not  what  it  had  been  twenty-two 
years  before.  Disastrous  war  and  alien  domination  had  tamed 
the  spirit  of  the  people.  The  aristocracy,  which  was  held  in 
great  honour  by  the  middle  class  and  by  the  populace,  had  put 
itself  at  the  head  of  the  movement  against  Charles  the  First,  but 
proved  obsequious  to  Charles  the  Second.  From  the  English 
Puritans  no  aid  was  now  to  be  expected.  They  were  a  feeble 
party,  proscribed  both  by  law  and  by  public  opinion.  The  bulk 
of  the  Scottish  nation,  therefore,  sullenly  submitted,  and,  with 
many  misgivings  of  conscience,  attended  the  ministrations  of 
the  Episcopal  clergy,  or  of  Presbyterian  divines  who  had  con- 
sented to  accept  from  the  government  a  half  toleration,  known 
by  the  name  of  the  Indulgence.  But  there  were,  particularly 
in  the  western  lowlands,  many  fierce  and  resolute  men  who  held 
that  the  obligation  to  observe  the  Covenant  was  pai'amount  to 
the  obligation  to  obey  the  magistrate.  These  people,  in  defiance 
of  the  law,  persisted  in  meeting  to  worship  God  after  their  own 
fashion.  The  Indulgence  they  regarded,  not  as  a  partial  re- 
paration of  the  wrongs  inflicted  by  the  State  on  the  Church,  but 
as  a  new  wrong,  the  more  odious  because  it  was  disguised  under 
the  appearance  of  a  benefit.  Persecution,  they  said,  could  only 
kill  the  body  ;  but  the  black  Indulgence  was  deadly  to  the  soul. 
Driven  from  the  towns,  they  assembled  on  heaths  and  moun- 
tains. Attacked  by  the  civil  power,  they  without  scruple  repelled 
force  by  force.  At  every  conventicle  they  mustered  in  arms. 
They  repeatedly  broke  out  into  open  rebellion.  They  were 
easily  defeated,  and  mercilessly  punished  :  but  neither  defeat 
nor  punishment  could  subdue  their  spirit.  Hunted  down  like 
wild  beasts,  tortured  till  their  bones  were  beaten  flat,  imprisoned 
by  hundreds,  hanged  by  scores,  exposed  at  one  time  to  the 
license  of  soldiers  from  England,  abandoned  at  another  time  to 
the  mercy  of  troops  of  marauders  from  the  Highlands,  they  still 


176  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

etood  at  bay  in  a  mood  so  savage  that  the  boldest  and  mightiest 
oppressor  could  not  but  dread  the  audacity  of  their  despair. 

Such  was,  during  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  the  state 
of  Scotland.  Ireland  was  not  less  distracted.  In  that  island 
existed  feuds,  compared  with  which  the  hottest  animosities  of 
English  politicians  were  lukewarm.  The  enmity  between  the 
Irish  Cavaliers  and  the  Irish  Roundheads  was  almost  forgotten 
in  the  fiercer  enmity  which  raged  between  the  English  and  the 
Celtic  races.  The  interval  between  the  Episcopalian  and  the 
Presbyterian  seemed  to  vanish,  when  compared  with  the  interval 
which  separated  both  from  the  Papist.  During  the  late  civil 
troubles  the  greater  part  of  the  Irish  soil  had  been  transferred 
from  the  vanquished  nation  to  the  victors.  To  the  favour  of 
the  Crown  few  either  of  the  old  or  of  the  new  occupants  had 
any  pretensions.  The  despoilers  and  the  despoiled  had,  for  the 
most  part,  been  rebels  alike.  The  government  was  soon  per- 
plexed and  wearied  by  the  conflicting  claims  and  mutual  accusa- 
tions of  the  two  incensed  factions.  Those  colonists  amonfj 
whom  Cromwell  had  portioned  out  the  concjuered  territory,  and 
whose  descendants  are  still  called  Cromwellians,  asserted  that 
the  aboriginal  inhabitants  were  deadly  enemies  of  the  English 
nation  under  every  dynasty,  and  of  the  Protestant  religion  in 
every  form.  They  described  and  exaggerated  the  atrocities 
which  had  disgraced  the  insurrection  of  Ulster :  they  urged  the 
King  to  follow  up  with  resolution  the  policy  of  the  Protector ; 
and  they  were  not  ashamed  to  hint  that  there  would  never  be 
peace  in  Ireland  till  the  old  Irish  race  should  be  extirpated. 
The  Roman  Catholics  extenuated  their  offense  as  they  best 
might,  and  expatiated  in  piteous  language  on  the  severity  of 
their  punishment,  which,  in  truth,  had  not  been  lenient.  They 
implored  Charles  not  to  confound  the  innocent  with  the  guilty, 
and  reminded  him  that  many  of  the  guilty  had  atoned  for  their 
fault  by  returning  to  their  allegiance,  and  by  defending  his 
rights  against  the  murderers  of  his  father.  The  court,  sick  of 
the  importunities  of  two  parties,  neither  of  which  it  had  any 
reason  to  love,  at  length  relieved  itself  from  trouble  by  dictating  a 
compromise.  That  system,  cruel,  but  most  complete  and  energetic, 


UNDER    CHARLES    TUE    SECOND.  177 

by  which  Oliver  had  proposed  to  make  the  island  thoroughly 
English,  was  abandoned.  The  Cromwellians  were  induced  to 
relinquish  a  third  part  of  their  acquisitions.  The  land  thus 
surrendered  was  capriciously  divided  among  claimants  whom  the 
government  chose  to  favour.  But  great  numbers  who  protested 
that  they  were  innocent  of  all  disloyalty,  and  some  persons  who 
boasted  that  their  loyalty  had  been  signally  displayed,  ob- 
tained neither  restitution  -nor  compensation,  and  filled  France 
and  Spain  with  outcries  against  the  injustice  and  ingratitude  of 
the  House  of  Stuart. 

Meantime  the  government  had,  even  in  England,  ceased  to 
be  popular.  The  Royalists  had  begun  to  quarrel  with  the  court 
and  with  each  other ;  and  the  party  which  had  been  vanquished, 
trampled  down,  and,  as  it  seemed,  annihilated,  but  which  had 
still  retained  a  strong  principle  of  life,  again  raised  its  head, 
and  renewed  the  interminable  war. 

Had  the  administration  been  faultless,  the  enthusiasm  with 
which  the  return  of  the  King  and  the  termination  of  the  mili- 
tary tyranny  had  been  hailed  could  not  have  been  permanent. 
For  it  is  the  law  of  our  nature  that  such  fits  of  excitement  shall 
always  be  followed  by  remissions.  The  manner  in  which  the 
court  abused  its  victory  made  the  remission  speedy  and  com- 
plete. Every  moderate  man  was  shocked  by  the' insolence, 
cruelty,  and  perfidy  with  which  the  Nonconformists  were  treated. 
The  penal  laws  had  effectually  purged  the  oppressed  party 
of  those  insincere  members  whose  vices  had  disgraced  it,  and 
had  made  it  again  an  honest  and  pious  body  of  men.  The 
Puritan,  a  conqueror,  a  ruler,  a  persecutor,  a  sequestrator,  had 
been  detested.  The  Puritan,  betrayed  and  evil  entreated,  de- 
serted by  all  the  timeservers  who,  in  his  prosperity,  had  claimed 
brotherhood  with  him,  hunted  from  his  home,  forbidden  under 
severe  penalties  to  pray  or  receive  the  sacrament  according  to 
his  conscience,  yet  still  firm  in  his  resolution  to  obey  God  rather 
than  man,  was,  in  spite  of  some  unpleasing  recollections,  an 
object  of  intj  and  respect  to  well  constituted  minds.  These 
feelings  became  stronger  when  it  was  noised  abroad  that  the 
court  was  not  disposed  to   treat  Papists  with   the  same  rigour 

12 


178  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

which  had  been  shown  to  Presbyterians.  A  vague  suspicioi* 
that  the  King  and  the  Duke  were  not  sincere  Protestants  sprang 
up  and  gathered  strength.  Many  persons  too  who  had  been 
disgusted  by  the  austerity  and  hypocrisy  of  the  Saints  of  the 
Commonwealth  began  to  be  still  more  disgusted  by  the  open 
profligacy  of  the  court  and  of  the  Cavaliers,  and  were  disjjosed 
to  doubt  whether  tho  scdlen  preciseness  of  Praise  God  Barebone 
might  not  be  preferable  to  the  outrageous  profaneness  and 
licentiousness  of  the  Buckinghams  and  Sedleys.  Even  immoral 
men,  who  were  not  utterly  destitute  of  sense  and  public  spirit, 
complained  that  the  government  treated  the  most  serious  matters 
as  trifles,  and  made  trifles  its  serious  business.  A  King  might 
be  pardoned  for  amusing  his  leisure  with  wine,  wit,  and  beauty. 
But  it  was  intolerable  that  he  should  sink  into  a  mere  lounger 
and  voluptuary,  that  the  gravest  affairs  of  state  shou.  .  be  neglect- 
ed, and  that  the  public  service  should  be  starved  anu  tho  finances 
deranged  in  order  that  1  arlots  and  parasites  might  grow  rich. 

A  large  body  of  Royalists  joined  in  these  complaints,  and 
added  many  sharp  reflections  on  the  King's  ingratitude.  His 
whole  revenue,  indeed,  woulJ  not  have  sufficed  to  reward  them 
all  in  proportion  to  their  own  consciousness  of  desert.  For  to 
every  distressed  gentleman  who  had  fought  under  Rupert  or 
Derby  his  own  services  seemed  eminently  meritorious,  and  his 
own  sufferings  eminently  severe.  Every  one  had  flattered  him- 
self that,  whatever  became  of  the  rest,  he  should  be  largely 
recompensed  for  all  that  he  had  lost  during  the  civil  troubles, 
and  that  the  restoration  of  the  monarchy  would  be  followed  by 
the  restoration  of  his  own  dilapidated  fortunes.  None 
of  these  expectants  could  restrain  his  indignation,  when  he 
found  that  he  was  as  poor  under  the  King  as  he  had  been  under 
the  Rump  or  the  Protector.  The  negligence  and  extravagance 
of  the  oourt  excited  the  bitter  indignation  of  these  loyal  veterans. 
They  justly  said  that  one  half  of  what  His  Majesty  squandered 
on  concubines  and  buffoons  would  gladden  the  hearts  of  hun- 
dreds of  old  Cavaliers  who,  after  cutting  down  their  oaks  and 
melting  their  plate  to  help  his  father,  now  wandered  about  in 
threadbare  suits,  and  did  not  know  where  to  turn  for  a  meal. 


DNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  179. 

At  the  same  time  a  sudden  fall  of  rents   took    place.     The  ■ 
income  of  every  landed  proprietor  was  diminished  by  five  shil- 
lings in  the  pound.     The  cry  of  agricultural  distress  rose  fromv 
every  shire  in  the   kingdom  ;  and  for  that  distress  the  govern-- 
ment  was,  as  usual,  held  accountable.     The  gentry,  compelled  tO' 
retrench  their  expenses  for  a  period,  saw   with  indignation   the' 
increasing  splendour  and  profusion  of  Whitehall,  and  were   im- 
movably fixed  in  the  belief  that  the  money  which  ought  to  have 
supported  their  households  had,  by  some    inexplicable   process, 
gone  to  tlie  favourites  of  the  King. 

The  minds  of  men  w  ere  now  in  such  a  temper  that  every  public 
act  excited  discontent.  Charles  had  taken  to  wife  Catharine 
Princess  of  Portugal.  The  marriage  was  generally  disliked ; 
Rnd  the  murmurs  became  loud  when  it  appeared  that  the  King 
was  not  likely  to  have  any  legitimate  posterity.  Dunkirk,  won 
by  Oliver  from  Spain,  was  sold  to  Lewis  the  Fourteenth,  King 
of  France.  This  bargain  excited  general  indignation.  English- 
men were  already  beginning  to  observe  with  uneasiness  the  pro. 
gress  of  the  French  power,  and  to  regard  the  House  of  Bourbon 
with  the  same  feelino^  with  which  their  grandfathers  had  regarded 
the  House  of  Austria.  Was  it  wise,  men  asked,  at  such  a  time,  to 
make  any  addition  to  the  strength  of  a  monarchy  already  too 
formidable  ?  Dunkirk  was,  moreover,  prized  by  the  people, 
not  merely  as  a  place  of  arms,  and  as  a  key  to  the  Low  Coun- 
tries, but  also  as  a  trophy  of  English  valour.  It  was  to  the 
subjects  of  Chai'les  what  Calais  had  been  to  an  earlier  genera- 
tion, and  what  the  rock  of  Gibraltar,  so  manfully  defended, 
through  disastrous  and  perilous  years,  against  the  fleets  and 
armies  of  a  mighty  coalition,  is  to  ourselves.  The  plea  of 
economy  might  have  had  some  weight,  if  it  had  been  urged  by 
an  economical  government.  But  it  was  notorious  that  tho 
charsres  of  Dunkirk  fell  far  short  of  the  suras  which  were  wasted 
at  court  in  vice  and  folly.  It  seemed  insupportable  that 
a  sovereign,  profuse  beyond  example  in  all  that  regarded  hia 
own  pleasures,  should  be  niggardly  in  all  that  regarded  tho  safety 
and  honour  of  the  state. 

The  public  discontent  was  heightened,  when  it  was   found 


180  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

that,  wliile  Dunkirk  was  abandoned  on  the  plea  of  economy,  the 
fortress  of  Tangier,  which  was  part  of  the  dower  of  Queen 
Catharine,  was  repaired  and  kept  up  at  an  enormous  charge. 
That  place  was  associated  with  no  recollections  gratifying  to  the 
national  pride :  it  could  in  no  way  promote  the  national  inter- 
ests :  it  involved  us  in  inglorious,  unprofitable,  and  interminable 
wars  with  tribes  of  half  savage  Mussulmans  ;  aud  it  was  situated 
in  a  climate  singularly  unfavourable  to  the  health  and  vigour  of 
the  English  race. 

But  the  murmurs  excited  by  these  errors  were  faint,  when 
compared  with  the  clamours  which  soon  broke  forth.  The 
government  encraored  in  war  with  the  United  Provinces.  The 
House  of  Commons  readily  voted  sums  unexampled  in  our  his- 
tory, sums  exceeding  those  which  had  supported  the  fleets  and 
armies  of  Cromwell  at  the  time  when  his  power  was  the  terror 
of  all  the  world.  But  such  was  the  extravagance,  dishonesty, 
and  incapacity  of  those  who  had  succeeded  to  his  authority,  that 
this  liberality  proved  worse  than  laseless.  The  sycophants  of 
the  court,  ill  qualified  to  contend  against  the  great  men  v/ho  then 
directed  the  arms  of  Holland,  against  such  a  statesman  as  De 
Witt,  and  such  a  commander  as  De  Ruyter,  made  fortunes 
rapidly,  while  the  sailors  mutinied  from  very  hunger,  while  the 
dockyards  were  unguarded,  while  the  ships  were  .eaky  and  with- 
out ri<r£rinof.  It  was  at  ienirth  determined  to  abandon  all  schemes 
of  offensive  war  ;  aud  it  soon  appeared  that  even  a  defensive 
war  was  a  task  too  hard  for  that  administration.  The  Dutch 
fleet  sailed  up  the  Thames,  and. burned  the  ships  of  war  which 
lay  at  Chatham.  It  was  said  that,  on  the  very  day  of  that  great 
humiliation,  the  King  feasted  with  the  ladies  of  his  seraglio,  and 
amused  himself  with  hunting  a  moth  about  the  supper  room. 
Then,  at  length,  tardy  justice  was  done  to  the  memory  of  Oliver. 
Everywhere  men  magnified  his  valour,  genius,  and  patriotism. 
Everywhere  it  was  remembered  how,  when  he  ruled,  all  foreign 
powers  had  trembled  at  the  name  of  England,  how  the  States 
General,  now  so  haughty,  had  crouched  at  his  feet,  and  how, 
when  it  was  known  that  he  was  no  more,  Amsterdam  was 
lighted  up  as  for  a  great  deliverance,  and  children  ran  along  the 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  181 

canals,  shouting  for  joy  that  the  Devil  was  dead.  Even  Royal- 
ists exclaimed  that  the  state  could  be  saved  only  by  calling  the 
old  soldiers  of  the  Commonwealth  to  arms.  Soon  the  capital 
began  to  feel  the  miseries  of  a  blockade.  Fuel  was  scarcely  to 
be  procured.  Tilbury  Fort,  the  place  where  Elizabeth  had, 
with  manly  spirit,  hurled  foul  scorn  at  Parma  and  Spain,  was 
insulted  by  the  invaders.  The  roar  of  foreign  guns  was  heard, 
for  the  first  time,  by  the  citizens  of  London.  In  the  Council  it 
was  seriously  proposed  that,  if  the  enemy  advanced,  the  Tower 
should  be  abandoned.  Great  multitudes  of  people  assembled 
in  the  streets  crying  out  that  England  was  bought  and  sold. 
The  houses  and  carriajxes  of  the  ministers  were  attacked  by  the 
populace  ;  and  it  seemed  likely  that  the  government  would  have 
to  deal  at  once  with  an  invasion  and  with  an  insurrection.  The 
extreme  danger,  it  is  true,  soon  passed  by.  A  treaty  was  con- 
cluded, very  different  from  the  treaties  which  Oliver  had  been 
in  the  habit  of  signing ;  and  the  nation  was  once  more  at  peace, 
but  was  m  a  mood  scarcely  less  fierce  and  sullen  than  in  the 
days  of  shipmoney. 

The  discontent  engendered  by  maladministration  was 
heightened  by  calamities  which  the  best  administration  could 
not  have  averted.  While  the  ignominious  war  with  Holland 
was  raging,  London  suffered  two  great  disasters,  such  as  never, 
in  so  short  a  space  of  time,  befel  one  city.  A  pestilence,  sur- 
/jjassing  in  horror  any  that  during  three  centuries  had  visited 
the  island,  swept  away,  in  six  months,  more  than  a  hundred 
thousand  human  beings.  And  scarcely  had  the  dead  cart 
ceased  to  go  its  rounds,  when  a  fire,  such  as  had  not  been 
known  in  Euro};e  since  the  conflagration  of  Rome  under  Nero, 
laid  in  ruins  the  whole  city,  from  the  Tower  to  the  Temple,  and 
from  the  river  to  the  purlieus  of  Smithfield. 

Had  there  been  a  general  election  while  the  nation  was 
smarting  under  so  many  disgraces  and  misfortunes,  it  is  proba- 
ble that  the  Roundheads  would  have  regained  ascendency  in 
the  state.  But  the  Parliament  was  still  the  Cavalier  Parlia- 
ment, chosen  in  the  transport  of  loyalty  which  had  followed  the 
Restoration.     Nevertheless   it   soon  became  evident    that   no 


182  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND 

English  legislature,  however  loyal,  would  now  consent  to  be 
merely  what  the  legislature  had  been  under  the  Tudors.    From, 
the  death  of   Elizabeth  to  the  eve  of  the   civil  war,  the  Puri- 
tans, who   predominated  in  the   representative  body,  had  been 
constantly,  by  a  dexterous  use  of  the  power  of  the  purse,  en- 
croaching on  the  province  of   the   executive  government.     The' 
gentlemen  who,  after  the  Restoration,  filled  the   Lower  House, 
though  they  abhorred  the   Puritan   name,  were  well  jDleased  to 
inherit  the  fruit  of  the   Puritan  policy.      They  were  indeed 
most  willing  to   employ  the  power  which  they  possessed  in  the 
state  for  the  purpose  of  making  their  King   mighty  and  hon- 
oured, both   at   home  and  abroad  :  but  with   the  power  itself 
they  were  resolved  not  to  part.     The  great  English  revolution 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  that   is  to  say,  the  transfer  of  the 
supreme  control  of  the  executive  administration  from  the  crown 
to  the   House  of  Commons,  was,  through  the  whole  long  exist- 
ence of  this  Parliament,  proceeding  noiselessly,  but  rapidly  aiid 
steadily.     Charles,  kept  poor  by  his  follies   and  vices,  wanted 
money.     The  Commons  alone  could  legally  grant  him  money. 
They  could  not  be   prevented  from  jjutting  their  own  price  on 
their  grants.     The  price  which  they  put    on  their  grants  was 
this,  that  they  should  be  allowed  to  interfere  with  every  one  of 
the  King's  prerogatives,  to  wring  from  him  his  consent  to  laws 
which  he  disliked,  to  break  up  cabinets,  to  dictate  the  course  of 
foreign  policy,  and  even   to   direct  the   administration  of  war. 
To  the  royal  office,  and  the  royal  jierson,  they  loudly  and  sin- 
cerely professed  the  strongest  attachment.     But  to  Clarendon 
they  owed  no   allegiance  ;  and  they  fell   on  him  as  furiously  as 
their   predecessors  had  fallen    on   Strafford.       The  minister's 
virtues   and  vices   alike   contributed  to  his  ruin.     Pie  was  the 
ostensible  head  of  the   administration,  and  was   therefore  held 
responsible  even   for  those   acts   which  he  had  strongly,  but 
v^ainly,  opposed  in  Council.     He  was  regarded  by  the  Puritans, 
\ind  by  all  who  pitied  them,  as   an  implacable  bigot,  a   second 
Laud,  with  much  more  than  Laud's  understanding.     He  had  on 
all  occasions  maintained  that  the  Act  of  Indemnity  ought  to  be 
strictly  observed  ;  and  this  part  of  his  conduct,  though  highly 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  183 

honourable  to  him,  made  him  hateful  to  all  those  Royalists 
who  wished  to  repair  their  ruined  fortunes  by  suing  the  Round- 
heads for  damages  and  mesne  profits.  The  Presbyterians  of 
Scotland  attributed  to  him  the  downfall  of  their  Church.  The 
Papists  of  Ireland  attributed  to  him  the  loss  of  their  lands.  As 
father  of  the  Duchess  of  York,  he  had  an  obvious  motive  for 
wishing  that  there  might  be  a  barren  Queen  ;  and  he  was  there- 
fore suspected  of  having  purposely  recommended  one.  The 
sale  of  Dunkirk  was  justly  imputed  to  him.  For  the  war  with 
Holland,  he  was,  with  less  justice,  held  accountable.  His  hot 
temper,  his  arrogant  deportment,  the  indelicate  eagerness  with 
which  he  grasped  at  riches,  the  ostentation  with  which  he 
squandered  them,  his  picture  gallery,  filled  with  masterpieces 
of  Vandyke  which  had  once  been  the  property  of  ruined  Cav- 
aliers, his  palace,  which  reared  its  long  and  stately  front  right 
opposite  to  the  humbler  residence  of  our  Kings,  drew  on  him 
much  deserved,  and  some  undeserved,  censure.  When  the 
Dutch  fleet  was  in  the  Thames,  it  was  against  the  Chancellor 
that  the  rage  of  the  populace  was  chiefly  directed.  His  win- 
dows were  broken ;  the  trees  of  his  garden  were  cut  down ; 
and  a  gibbet  was  set  up  before  his  door.  But  nowhere  was  he 
more  detested  than  in  the  House  of  Commons.  He  was  unable 
to  perceive  that  the  time  was  fast  approaching  when  that 
House,  if  it  continued  to  exist  at  all,  must  be  supreme  in  the 
state,  when  the  management  of  that  House  would  be  the  most 
important  department  of  politics,  and  when,  without  the  help 
of  men  possessing  the  ear  of  that  House,  it  would  be  impossible 
to  carry  on  the  government.  He  obstinately  persisted  in  con- 
sidering the  Parliament  as  a  body  in  no  respect  differing  from 
the  Parliament  which  had  been  sitting  when,  forty  years  be- 
fore, he  first  began  to  study  law  at  the  Temple.  He  did  not 
wish  to  deprive  the  legislature  of  those  powers  which  were  in- 
herent in  it  by  the  old  constitution  of  the  realm :  but  the  new 
development  of  those  powers,  though  a  development  natural, 
inevitable,  and  to  be  prevented  only  by  utterly  destroying  the 
powers  themselves,  disgusted  and  alarmed  him.  Nothing 
would  have  induced  him  to  put  the  great  seal  to  a  writ  for  raw- 


184  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

ing  sliipmoney,  or  to  give  his  voice  in  Council  for  committing  a 
member  of  Parliament  to  the  Tower,  on  account  of  words  spoken 
in  debate  :  but,  when  the  Commons  began  to  inquire  in  what 
manner  the  money  voted  for  the  war  had  been  wasted,  and  to 
examine  into  the  maladministration  of  the  navy,  he  flamed  with 
indignation.  Such  inquiry,  according  to  him,  was  out  of  their 
province.  He  admitted  that  the  House  was  a  most  loyal  as- 
sembly, that  it  had  done  good  service  to  the  crown,  and  that  its 
intentions  were  excellent.  But,  both  in  public  and  in  the 
closet,  he,  on  every  occasion,  expressed  his  concern  that  gen- 
tlemen so  sincerely  attached  to  monarchy  should  unadvisedly 
encroach  on  the  prerogative  of  the  monarch.  Widely  as  they 
differed  in  spirit  from  the  members  of  the  Long  Parliament, 
they  yet,  he  said,  imitated  that  Parliament  in  meddling  with 
matters  which  lay  beyond  the  sphere  of  the  Estates  of  the 
realm,  and  which  were  subject  to  the  authority  of  the  ci'own 
alone,  The  country,  he  maintained,  would  never  be  well  gov- 
erned till  the  knights  of  shires  and  the  burgesses  were  content 
to  be  what  their  predecessors  had  been  in  the  days  of  Eliza- 
beth. All  the  plans  which  men  more  observant  than  himself 
of  the  signs  of  that  time  proposed,  for  the  purjjose  of  maintain- 
ing a  good  understanding  between  the  Court  and  the  Com- 
mons, he  disdainfully  rejected  as  crude  projects,  inconsistent 
with  the  old  polity  of  England.  Towards  the  young  orators, 
who  were  rising  to  distinction  and  authority  in  the  Lower 
House,  his  deportment  was  ungracious  :  and  he  succeeded  in 
making  them,  with  scarcely  an  exception,  his  deadly  enemies. 
Indeed  one  of  his  most  serious  faults  was  an  inordinate  con- 
tempt for  youth  :  and  this  contempt  was  the  more  unjustifiable, 
because  his  own  experience  in  English  politics  was  by  no  means 
proportioned  to  his  age.  For  so  great  a  part  of  his  life  had  been 
passed  abroad  that  he  knew  less  of  that  world  in  which  he  found 
himself  on  his  return  than  many  who  might  have  been  his  sons. 
For  these  reasons  he  was  disliked  by  the  Commons.  For 
very  different  reasons  he  was  equally  disliked  by  the  Court. 
His  morals  as  well  as  his  politics  were  those  of  an  earlier  gen- 
eration.    Even  when  he  was  a  young  law  student,  living  much 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  185 

with  men  of  wit  and  pleasure,  his  natural  gravity  and  his  relig- 
ious principles  had  to  a  great  extent  preserved  him  from  the 
contagion  of  fashionable  debauchery  ;  and  he  was  by  no  means 
likely,  in  advanced  years  and  in  declinii^g  health,  to  turn  liber- 
tine. On  the  vices  of  the  young  and  gay  he  looked  with  an 
aversion  almost  as  bitter  and  contemptuous  as  that  which  he  felt 
for  the  theological  errors  of  the  sectaries.  He  missed  no  op- 
portunity of  showing  his  scorn  of  the  mimics,  revellers,  and 
courtesans  who  crowded  the  palace  ;  and  the  admonitions  which 
he  addressed  to  the  King  himself  were  very  sharp,  and,  what 
Charles  disliked  still  more,  very  long.  Scarcely  any  voice  was 
raised  in  favour  of  a  minister  loaded  with  the  double  odium  of 
faults  which  roused  the  fury  of  the  people,  and  of  virtues  which 
annoyed  and  importuned  the  sovereign.  Southampton  was  no 
more.  Ormond  performed  the  duties  of  friendship  manfully  and 
faithfully,  but  in  vain.  The  Chancellor  fell  with  a  great  ruin. 
The  seal  was  taken  from  him  :  the  Commons  impeached  him  : 
his  head  was  not  safe  :  he  fled  irom  the  country  :  an  act  was 
passed  which  doomed  him  to  perpetual  exile  ;  and  those  who 
had  assailed  and  undermined  him  began  to  struggle  for  the 
fragments  of  his  power. 

The  sacrifice  of  Clarendon  in  some  degree  took  off  the  edge 
of  the  public  ,  petite  for  revenge.  Yet  was  the  anger  excited 
by  the  profusion  and  negligence  of  the  government,  and  by  the 
miscarriages  of  the  late  war,  by  no  means  extinguished.  The 
counsellors  of  Charles,  with  the  fate  of  the  Chancellor  before 
their  eyes,  were  anxious  for  their  own  safety.  They  accordingly 
advised  their  master  to  soothe  the  irritation  which  prevailed 
both  in  the  Parliament  and  throughout  the  country  and  for  that 
end,  to  take  a  step  which  has  no  parallel  in  the  history  of  the 
House  of  Stuart,  and  which  was  worthy  of  the  prudence  and 
magnanimity  of  Oliver. 

We  have  now  reached  a  point  at  which  the  history  of  the 
great  English  revolution  begins  to  be  complicated  with  the  his- 
tory of  foreign  politics.  The  power  of  Spain  had,  during  many 
years,  been  declining.  She  still,  it  is  ti'ue,  held  in  Europe  the 
Milanese  and  the  two  Sicilies,  Belgium,  and  Franche  Comte.  In 


186  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

America  her  dominions  still  spread,  ou  both  sides  of  the  equator, 
far  beyond  the  limits  of  the  torrid  zone.  But  this  great  body 
had  been  smitten  with  palsy,  and  was  not  only  incapable  of 
giving  molestation  to  other  states,  but  could  not,  without  assist- 
ance, repel  aggression.  France  was  now,  beyond  all  doubt,  the 
greatest  power  in  Eurojie.  Her  resources  have,  since  those 
days,  absolutely  increased,  but  have  not  increased  so  fast  as  the 
resources  of  England.  It  must  also  be  remembered  that,  a 
hundred  and  eighty  years  ago,  the  empire  of  Russia,  now  a 
monarchy  of  the  first  class,  was  as  entirely  out  of  the  system  of 
European  politics  as  Abyssinia  or  Siam,  that  the  Plouse  of  Bran- 
denburg was  then  hardly  more  powerful  than  the  House  of 
Saxony,  and  that  the  republic  of  the  United  States  had  not  then 
begun  to  exist.  The  weight  of  France,  therefore,  though  still 
very  considerable,  has  relatively  diminished.  Her  territory 
was  not  in  the  days  of  Lewis  the  Fourteenth  quite  so  extensive 
as  at  present  :  but  it  was  large,  compact,  fertile,  well  placed 
both  for  attack  and  for  defence,  situated  in  a  happy  climate,  and 
inhabited  by  a  brave,  active,  and  ingenious  people.  The  state 
implicitly  obeyed  the  direction  of  a  single  mind.  The  great 
fiefs  which,  three  hundred  years  before,  had  been,  in  all  but 
name,  independent  principalities,  had  been  annexed  to  the  crown. 
Only  a  few  old  men  could  remember  the  last  meeting  of  the 
States  General.  The  resistance  which  the  Huguenots,  the 
nobles,  and  the  parliaments  had  offered  to  the  kingly  power,  had 
been  put  down  by  the  two  great  Cardinals  who  had  ruled  the 
nation  during  forty  years.  The  government  was  now  a  des- 
potism, but, at  least  in  its  dealings  with  the  upper  classes,  a  mild 
and  generous  despotism,  tempered  by  courteous  manners  and 
chivalrous  sentiments.  The  means  at  the  disposal  of  the  sov- 
ereign were,  for  that  age,  truly  formidable.  His  revenue,  raised,  it 
is  true,  by  a  severe  and  unequal  taxation  which  ^iressed  heavily  on 
the  cultivators  of  the  soil,  far  exceeded  that  of  any  other  potentate. 
His  army,  excellently  disciplined,  and  commanded  by  the  great- 
est generals  then  living,  already  consisted  of  more  than  a  hun- 
dred and  twenty  thousand  men.  Such  an  array  of  regular  troops 
had  not  been  seen  in  Europe  since  the  downfall  of  the  Roman 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  187 

empire.  Of  maritime  powers  France  was  not  the  first.  But, 
though  she  had  rivals  on  the  sea,  she  had  not  yet  a  superior. 
Such  was  her  strength  during  the  last  forty  years  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  that  no  enemy  could  singly  withstand  her,  and 
that  two  great  coalitions,  in  which  half  Christendom  was  united 
against  her,  failed  of  success. 

The  personal  qualities  of  the  French  King  added  to  the 
respect  inspired  by  the  power  and  importance  of  his  kingdom. 
No  sovereign  has  ever  represented  the  majesty  of  a  great 
state  with  more  dignity  and  grace.  He  was  his  own  prime 
minister,  and  performed  the  duties  of  a  prime  minister  with  an 
ability  and  industry  which  could  not  be  reasonably  expected 
from  one  who  had  in  infancy  succeeded  to  a  crown,  and  who 
had  been  surrounded  by  flatterers  before  he  could  speak.  He 
had  shown,  in  an  eminent  degree,  two  talents  invaluable  to  a 
prince,  the  talent  of  choosing  his  servants  well,  and  the  talent  of 
appropriating  to  himself  the  chief  part  of  the  credit  of  their  acts. 
In  his  dealings  with  foreign  powers  he  had  some  generosity,  but 
no  justice.  To  unhappy  allies  who  threw  themselves  at  his  feet, 
and  had  no  hope  but  in  his  compassion,  he  extended  his  protec- 
tion with  a  romantic  disinterestedness,  which  seemed  better 
suited  to  a  knight  errant  than  to  a  statesman.  But  he  broke 
through  the  most  sacred  ties  of  public  faith  without  scruple  or 
shame,  whenever  they  interfered  with  his  interest,  or  with  what 
lie  called  his  glory.  His  perfidy  and  violence,  however,  excited 
less  enmity  than  the  insolence  with  which  he  constantly  reminded 
his  neighbours  of  his  own  greatness  and  of  their  littleness. 
He  did  not  at  this  time  profess  the  austere  devotion  which,  at  a 
later  period,  gave  to  his  court  the  aspect  of  a  monastery.  On 
the  contrary,  he  was  as  licentious,  though  by  no  means  as  frivo- 
lous and  indolent,  as  his  brother  of  England.  But  he  was  a 
sincere  Roman  Catholic  ;  and  both  his  conscience  and  his  vanity 
impelled  him  to  use  his  power  for  the  defence  and  propagation 
of  the  true  faith,  after  the  example  of  his  renowned  predeces- 
sors, Clovis,  Charlemagne,  and  Saint  Lewis. 

Our  ancestors  naturally  looked  with  serious  alarm  on  the 
growing  powej  of  France.     This  feeliug,  in  itself  perfectly 


I88  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

reasonable,  was  mingled  with  other  feelings  less  praiseworthy. 
France  was  our  old  enemy.  It  was  against  France  that  th« 
most  glorious  battles  recorded  in  our  annals  had  been  fought, 
The  conquest  of  France  had  been  twice  effected  by  the  Plan. 
tagenets.  The  loss  of  France  had  been  long  remembered  as  a 
great  national  disaster.  The  title  of  King  of  France  was  still 
borne  by  our  sovereigns.  The  lilies  of  France  still  appeared 
mingled  with  our  own  lions,  on  the  shield  of  the  House  oi 
Stuart.  In  the  sixteenth  century  the  di'ead  inspired  by  Spain 
had  suspended  the  animosity  of  which  France  had  anciently" 
been  the  object.  But  the  dread  inspired  by  Spain  had  given 
place  to  contemptuous  compassion  ;  and  France  was  again  re- 
garded as  our  national  foe.  The  sale  of  Dunkirk  to  France 
had  been  the  most  generally  unpopular  act  of  the  restored 
King.  Attachment  to  France  had  been  prominent  among  the 
crimes  imputed  by  the  Commons  to  Clarendon.  Even  in  trifles 
the  public  feeling  showed  itself.  When  a  brawl  took  place  in 
the  streets  of  Westminster  between  the  retinues  of  the  French 
and  Spanish  embassies,  the  populace,  though  forcibly  prevented 
from  interfering,  had  given  unequivocal  proofs  that  the  old 
antipathy  to  France  was  not  extinct. 

France  and  Spain  were  now  engaged  in  a  more  serious  con- 
test. One  of  the  chief  objects  of  the  policy  of  Lewis  through- 
out his  life  was  to  extend  his  dominions  towards  the  Ehine. 
For  this  end  he  had  engaged  in  war  with  Spain,  and  he  was 
now  in  the  full  career  of  conquest.  The  United  Provinces  saw 
with  anxiety  the  progress  of  his  arms.  Tliat  renowned  federa- 
tion had  reached  the  height  of  jjower,  prosperity,  and  glory. 
The  Batavian  territory,  conquered  from  the  waves  and  defended 
against  them  by  human  art,  was  in  extent  little  superior  to  the 
principality  of  Wales.  But  all  that  narrow  space  was  a  busy 
and  populous  hive,  in  which  new  wealth  was  every  day  created, 
and  in  which  vast  masses  of  old  wealth  were  hoarded.  The 
aspect  of  Holland,  the  rich  cultivation,  the  innumerable  canals, 
the  ever  whirling  mills,  the  endless  fleets  of  barges,  the  quick 
succession  of  great  towns,  the  ports  bristling  with  thousands  of 
masts,   the  large  and  stately  mansioDS;  the  trim  villas,  the 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  189 


« 


richly  furnished  apartments,  the  picture  galleries,  the  summer 
houses,  the  tulip  beds,  produced  on  English  travellers  in  that 
age  an  effect  similar  to  the  effect  which  the  first  sight  of 
England  now  produces  on  a  Norwegian  or  a  Canadian.  The 
States  General  had  been  compelled  to  humble  themselves  before 
Cromwell.  But  after  the  Restoration  they  had  taken  their 
revenge,  had  waged  war  with  success  against  Charles,  and  had 
concluded  peace  on  honourable  terms.  Rich,  however,  as  the 
Republic  w^s,  and  highly  considered  in  Europe,  she  was  no 
match  for  the  power  of  Lewis.  She  apprehended,  not  without 
good  cause,  that  his  kingdom  might  soon  be  extended  to  her 
frontiers ;  and  she  might  well  dread  the  immediate  vicinity  of  a 
monarch  so  great,  so  ambitious,  and  so  unscrupulous.  Yet  it 
was  not  easy  to  devise  any  expedient  which  might  avert  the 
danger.  Tiie  Dutch  alone  could  not  turn  the  scale  against 
France.  On  the  side  of  the  Rhine  no  help  was  to  be  expected. 
Several  German  princes  had  been  gained  by  Lewis  ;  and  the 
Emperor  himself  was  embarrassed  by  the  discontents  of  Hun- 
gary. England  was  separated  from  the  United  Provinces  by 
the  recollection  of  cruel  injuries  recently  inflicted  and  endured  ; 
and  her  policy  had,  since  the  restoration,  been  so  devoid  of  wis- 
dom and  spirit,  that  it  was  scarcely  possible  to  expect  from  her 
any  valuable  assistance.   ' 

But  the  fate  of  Clarendon  and  the  growing  ill  humour  of 
the  Parliament  determined  the  advisers  of  Charles  to  adopt  on 
a  sudden  a  policy  which  amazed  and  delighted  the  nation. 

The  English  resident  at  Brussels,  Sir  William  Temple,  one 
of  the  most  expert  diplomatists  and  most  pleasing  writers  of 
that  age,  had  already  represented  to  this  court  that  it  was  both 
desirable  and  practicable  to  enter  into  engagements  with  the 
States  General  for  the  purpose  of  checking  the  progress  of 
France.  For  a  time  his  suggestions  had  been  slighted  ;  but  it 
was  now  thought  expedient  to  act  on  them.  He  was  commis- 
sioned to  negotiate  with  the  States  General.  He  proceeded  to 
the  Hague,  and  soon  came  to  an  understanding  with  John  De 
Witt,  then  the  chief  minister  of  Holland.  Sweden,  small  as 
her  resources  were^  liad,  forty  years  before,  been  raised  by  the 


190  HISTORY    O^   ENGLAND. 

genius  of  Gustavus  Adolphus  to  a  high  rank  among  European 
powers,  and  had  not  yet  descended  to  her  natural  position.  She 
was  induced  to  join  on  this  occasion  with  England  and  the 
States.  Thus  was  formed  that  coalition  known  as  the  Triple 
Alliance.  Lewis  showed  signs  of  vexation  and  resentment,  but 
did  not  think  it  politic  to  draw  on  himself  the  hostility  of  such 
a  confederacy  in  addition  to  that  of  Spain.  He  consented, 
therefore,  to  relinquish  a  large  part  of  the  territory  which  his 
armies  had  occupi  1.  Peace  was  restored  to  Europe  ;  and  the 
English  governuieut,  lately  an  object  of  general  contempt,  was, 
during  a  few  months,  regarded  by  foreign  powers  with  respect 
scarcely  less  than  that  which  the  Protector  had  inspired. 

At  home  the  Triple  •  Alliance  was  popular  in  the  highest 
•uegres.  It  gratuieu.  aiiivc  uational  auiniosity  and  national 
pride.  It  put  a  limit  to  the  encroachments  of  a  powerful  and 
ambitious  neighbour.  It  bound  the  leading  Protestant  states 
together  in  close  union.  Cavaliers  and  Roundheads  rejoiced  in 
•common  :  but  the  joy  of  the  Roundhead  was  even  greater  than 
that  of  the  Cavalier.  For  England  had  now  allied  herself 
strictly  with  a  country  republican  in  government  and  Presby- 
terian in  religion,  against  a  country  ruled  by  an  arbitrary 
prince  and  attached  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  The  House 
of  Commons  loudly  applauded  the  treaty  ;  and  some  uncourtly 
grumblers  described  it  as  the  only  good  thing  that  had  been 
done  since  the  King  came  in. 

The  King,  however,  cared  little  for  the  approbation  of  his 
Parliament  or  of  his  people.  The  Triple  Alliance  he  regarded 
merely  as  a  temporary  expedient  for  quieting  discontents  which 
"had  seemed  likely  to  become  serious.  The  independence,  the 
safety,  the  dignity  of  the  nation  ovef  H'hich  he  presided  were 
nothing  to  him.  He  had  begun  to  find  constitutional  restraints 
galling.  Already  had  been  formed  iv  the  Parliament  a  strong 
connection  known  by  the  name  of  the  Country  Party,  Th^t 
party  included  all  the  public  mer  who  leaned  towards  Piiritan.- 
ism  and  Republicanism,  and  ma>^y  who,  though  attached  to  the 
Church  and  to  hereditary  mon^i-chy,  had  been  driven  into  op- 
position by  dread  of  Popery,  b^  dread  of  France,  and  by  disgust 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  191 

at  the  extravagance,  dissoluteness,  and  faithlessness  of  the  court. 
The  power  of  this  band  of  politicians  was  constantly  growing. 
Every  year  some  of  those  members  who  had  been  returned  to 
Parliament  during  the  loyal  excitement  of  1661  had  dropped 
off ;  and  the  vacant  seats  had  generally  been  filled  by  persons 
less  tractable.  Charles  did  not  think  himself  a  King  while  an 
assembly  of  subjects  could  call  for  his  accounts  before  paying 
his  debts,  and  could  insist  on  knowing  which  of  his  mistresses 
or  boon  companions  had  intercepted  the  money  destined  for  the 
equipping  and  manning  of  the  fleet.  Though  not  very  studi- 
ous of  fame,  he  was  galled  by  the  taunts  which  were  sometimes 
uttered  in  tbe  discussions  of  the  Commons,  and  on  one  occa- 
sion attempted  to  restrain  the  freedom  of  sjieech  by  disgraceful 
means.  Sir  John  Coventry,  a  country  gentleman,  had,  in  de- 
bate, sneered  at  the  profligacy  of  the  court.  Tn  any  former 
reign  he  would  probably  have  been  called  before  the  Privy 
Council  and  committed  to  the  Tower.  A  different  course  was 
now  taken.  A  gang  of  bullies  was  secretly  sent  to  slit  the  nose 
of  the  offender.  This  ignoble  revenge,  instead  of  quelling  the 
spirit  of  opposition,  raised  such  a  tempest  that  the  King  was 
compelled  to  submit  to  the  cruel  humiliation  of  passing  an  act 
which  attainted  the  instruments  of  his  revenge,  and  which  took 
from  him  the  power  of  pardoning  them. 

But,  impatient  as  he  was  of  constitutional  restraints,  how 
was  he  to  emancipate  himself  from  them  ?  He  could  make 
himself  despotic  only  by  the  help  of  a  great  standing  army  ;  and 
such  an  army  was  not  in  existence.  His  revenues  did  indeed 
enable  him  to  keep  up  some  regular  troops  :  but  those  troops, 
though  niimerous  enough  to  excite  great  jealousy  and  appre- 
hension in  the  House  of  Commons  and  in  the  country,  were 
scarcely  numerous  enough  to  protect  Whitehall  and  the  Tower 
against  a  rising  of  the  mob  of  London.  Such  risings  were,  in- 
deed, to  be  dreaded ;  for  it  was  calculated  that  in  the  capital 
and  its  suburbs  dwelt  not  less  than  20,000  of  Oliver's  old 
soldiers. 

Since  the  King  was  bent  on  emancipating  himself  from  the 
control  of  Parliament,  and  since,  in  such  an  enterprise,  he  could 


192  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

not  hope  for  effectual  aid  at  home,  it  followed  that  he  must  look- 
for  aid  abroad.  The  power  and  wealth  of  the  King  of  France 
might  be  equal  to  the  arduous  task  of  establishing  absolute 
monarchy  in  England.  Such  an  ally  would  undoubtedly  ex- 
pect substantial  probfs  of  gratitude  for  such  a  service.  Charles 
must  descend  to  the  rank  of  a  great  vassal,  and  must  make 
peace  and  war  according  to  the  directions  of  the  government 
which- protected  him.  His  relation  to  Lewis  would  closely  re- 
semble that  in  which  the  Rajah  of  Nagpore  and  the  King  of 
Oude  now  stand  to  the  British  Government.  Those  princes  are 
bound  to  aid  the  East  India  Company  in  all  hostilities,  defen- 
sive and  offensive,  and  to  have  no  diplomatic  relations  but  such 
as  the  East  India  Company  shall  sanction.  The  Company  in 
return  guarantees  them  against  insurrection.  As  long  as  they 
faithfully  discharge  their  obligations  to  the  paramount  power, 
they  ai'e  permitted  to  dispose  of  large  revenues,  to  fill  their 
palaces  with  beautiful  women,  to  besot  themselves  in  the  com- 
pany of  their  favourite  revellers,  and  to  oppress  with  impunity 
any  subject  who  may  incur  their  displeasure.*  Such  a  life 
would  be  insupportable  to  a  man  of  high  spirit  and  of  powerful 
understanding.  But  to  Charles,  sensual,  indolent,  unequal  to 
any  strong  intellectual  exertion,  and  destitute  alike  of  all 
patriotism  and  of  all  sense  of  personal  dignity,  the  prospect  had 
nothing  unp]  easing. 

Tliat  the  Duke  of  York  should  have  concurred  in  the  desisti 
of  degrading  that  crown  which  it  was  probable  that  he  would 
himself  one  day  wear  may  seem  more  extraordinary.  For  his 
nature  was  haughty  and  imperious  ;  and,  indeed,  he  continued 
to  the  very  last  to  show,  by  occasional  starts  and  struggles,  his 
impatience  of  the  French  yoke.  But  he  was  almost  as  much 
debased  by  superstition  as  his  brother  by  indolence  and  vice. 
James  was  now  a  Roman  Catholic.  Religious  bigotry  had 
become  the  dominant  sentiment  of  his  narrow  and  stubborn 
mind,  and  had  so  mingled  itself  with  his  love  of  rule,  that  the 

*  I  am  happy  to  say,  that,  since  this  passage  was  written,  the  territories  both 
of  the  Rajah  of  Nagpore  and  of  the  King  of  Oude  have  been  added  to  the  British 
dominions.    (1857.) 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  193 

two  passions  could  hardly  be  distiuguished  from  each  othei\  It 
seemed  highly  improbable  that,  without  foreign  aid,  he  would 
be  able  to  obtain  ascendency,  or  even  toleration,  for  his  own 
faith  :  and  lie  was  in  a  temper  to  see  nothing  humiliating  in 
u»y  step  which  might  promote  the  intei'ests  of  the  true  Church. 

A  negotiation  was  opened  which  lasted  during  several 
months.  The  chief  agent  between  the  English  and  French 
courts  was  the  beautiful,  graceful,  and  intelligent  Henrietta, 
Duchess  of  Orleans,  sister  of  Charles,  sister  in  law  of  Lewis, 
ind  a  favourite  with  both.  The  King  of  England  offered  to 
ieclare  himself  a  Roman  Catholic,  to  dissolve  the  Triple  Alli- 
ince,  and  to  join  with  France  against  Holland,  if  France  would 
engage  to  lend  him  such  military  and  pecuniary  aid  as  might 
make  him  independent  of  his  parliament,  Lewis  at  first  affected 
JO  receive  those  propositions  coolly,  and  at  length  agreed  to 
them  with  the  air  of  a  man  who  is  conferring  a  great  favour : 
but  in  truth,  the  course  which  he  had  resolved  to  take  was  one 
by  which  he  might  gain  and  could  not  lose. 

It  seems  certain  that  he  never  seriously  thought  of  establish- 
ing despotism  and  Popery  in  England  by  force  of  arms.  He 
must  have  been  aware  that  such  an  enterprise  would  be  in  the 
highest  degree  arduous  and  hazardous,  that  it  would  task  to  the 
utmost  all  the  energies  of  France  daring  many  years,  and  that 
it  would  be  altogether  incompatible  with  more  promising 
schemes  of  aggrandisement,  which  were  dear  to  his  heart.  He 
would  indeed  willingly  have  acquired  the  merit  and  the  glory 
of  doing  a  great  service  on  reasonable  terms  to  the  Church  of 
which  he  was  a  member.  But  he  was  little  disposed  to  imitate 
his  ancestors  who,  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  had 
led  the  flower  of  French  chivalry  to  die  in  Syria  and  Egypt : 
and  he  well  knew  that  a  crusade  against  Protestantism  in  Great 
Britain  would  not  be  less  perilous  than  the  expeditions  in  which 
the  armies  of  Lewis  the  Seventh  and  of  Lewis  the-  Ninth  had 
perished.  He  had  no  motive  for  wishing  the  Stuarts  to  be 
absolute.  He  did  not  regard  the  English  constitution  with 
feelings  at  all  resembling  those  which  have  in  later  times 
induced  princes  to  make  war  on  the  free  institutions  of  neigh- 


194  HISTORY    OF    EIVGLAND. 

bouring  nations.  At  present  a  great  party  zealous  for  popular 
government  has  ramifications  in  every  civilised  country.  Any 
important  advantage  gained  anywhere  by  that  party  is  almost 
certain  to  be  the  .signal  for  general  commotion.  It  is  not  won- 
derful that  governments  threatened  by  a  common  danger 
should  combine  for  the  purpose  of  mutual  insurance.  But  in 
the  seventeenth  century  no  such  danger  existed.  Between  the 
public  mind  of  England  and  the  public  mind  of  France,  there 
was  a  great  gulph.  Our  insiitutions  and  our  factions  were  as 
little  understood  at  Paris  as  at  Constantinople.  It  may  be 
doubted  whether  any  one  of  the  forty  members  of  the  French 
Academy  had  an  p]nglish  volume  in  his  library,  or  knew  Shake- 
speare, Jonson,  or  Spenser  even  by  name.  A  few  Huguenots, 
who  had  inherited  the  mutinous  spirit  of  their  ancestors,  might 
perhaps  have  a  fellow  feeling  with  their  brethren  in  the  faith, 
the  English  Eoundheads :  but  the  Huguenots  had  ceased  to  be 
formidable.  The  French,  as  a  people,  attached  to  the  Church 
of  Rome,  and  proud  of  the  greatness  of  their  King  and  of  their 
own  loyalty,  looked  on  our  struggles  against  Popery  and 
arbitrary  power,  not  only  without  admiration  or  sympathy, 
but  with  strong  disapprobation  and  disgust.  *  It  would  there- 
fore be  a  great  error  to  ascribe  the  conduct  of  Lewis  to  appre- 
hensions at  all  resembling  those  which,  in  our  age,  induced 
the  Holy  Alliance  to  interfere  in  the  internal  troubles  of 
Naples  and  Spain. 

Nevertheless,  the  ])ropositions  made  by  the  court  of  White- 
hall were  most  welcome  to  him.  He  already  meditated  gigantic 
designs,  which  were  destined  to  keep  Europe  hi  constant  fer- 
mentation during  more  than  forty  years.  He  wished  to  humble 
the  United  Provinces,  and  to  annex  Belgium,  Franche  Comte, 
and  Loraine  to  his  dominions.  Nor  was  this  all.  The  King  of 
Spain  was  a  sickly  child.  It  was  likely  that  he  would  die 
without  issue.  His  eldest  sister  was  Queen  of  France.  A  day 
would  almost  certainly  come,  and  might  come  very  soon,  when 
the  House  of  Bourbon  might  lay  claim  to  that  vast  empire  on 
which  the  sun  never  set.  The  union  of  two  great  monarchies 
under  one  head  would  doubtless  be   opposed  by  a  continental 


UKDER   CHARLES   THE   SECOXD.  195 

CMialition.  But  for  auy  continental  eoalition  France  single- 
handed  was  a  match.  Enghind  could  turn  the  scale.  On  the 
course  which,  in  such  a  crisis,  Enijldnd  might  pursue,  the 
destinies  of  the  world  would  depend ;  and  it  was  notorious  that 
the  P]n  Jish  Parliament  and  nation  were  strongly  attached  to 
the  policy  which  had  dictated  the  Triple  Alliance.  Nothing, 
tlierefore,  coulil  he  more  gratiiying^to  Lewis  than  to  learn  tliat 
the  princes,  of  the  House  of  Stuart  needed  his  help,  and  were 
willing  to  purchase  that  help  by  unbounded  subserviency.  He 
determined  to  profit  by  the  opportunity,  and  laid  down  for 
himself  a  plan  to  which,  without  deviation,  he  adhered,  till  the 
Revolution  of  1688  disconcerted  all  his  politics.  He  professed 
himself  desirous  to  promote  the  designs  of  the  English  court. 
He  promised  large  aid.  He  from  time  to  time  doled  out  such 
aid  as  might  serve  to  keep  hope  alive,  and  as  he  could  v/ithout 
risk  or  inconvenience  spare.  In  this  way,  at  an  expense  very 
much  less  than  that  which  he  incurred  in  Imilding  and  decora- 
ting Versailles  or  Marli,  he  succeeded  in  making  England, 
during  nearly  twenty  years,  almost  as  insignificant  a  member 
of  the  political  system  of  Europe  as  the  republic  of  8aii 
Marino. 

His  object  was  not  to  destroy  our  constitution,  but  to  keep 
the  various  elements  of  which  it  was  composed  in  a  perpetual 
state  of  conflict,  and  to  set  irreconcilable  enmity  between  those 
who  had  the  power  of  the  purse  and  those  who  had  the  power 
of  the  sword.  With  this  view  he  bribed  and  stimulated  both 
parties  in  turn,  pensioned  at  once  the  ministers  of  the  crown 
and  the  chiefs  of  the  opposition,  encouraged  the  court  to  witii- 
stand  the  seditious  encroachments  of  the  Farliament,  and  con- 
veyed to  the  Parliament  intimations  of  the  arbitrary  designs  of 
tlie  court. 

One  of  the  devices  to  which  he  resorted  for  the  purpose  of 
obtaining  an  ascendency  in  the  English  counsels  deserves 
especial  notice.  Charles,  though  incapable  of  love  in  the 
highest  sense  of  the  word,  was  the  slave  of  any  woman  whose 
person  excited  his  desires,  and  whose  airs  and  prattle  amused 
bis  leisure.    Indeed  ^  Jiusbapd  would  be  justly  derided  wtjo 


196  HISTOlir    OF    ENGLAND. 

should  bear  from  a  wife  of  exalted  rank  and  spotless  virtue 
half  the  insolence  which  the  King  of  England  bore  from  the  con- 
cubines who,  while  they  owed  everything  to  hjs  bounty,  caressed 
his  courtiers  almost  before  his  face.  He  had  patiently  endured 
the  termagant  passions  of  Barbara  Palmer  and  the  pert  vivacity 
of  Eleanor  Gwynn.  Lewis  thought  that  the  most  useful  envoy 
who  could  be  sent  to  London,  would  be  a  handsome,  licentious, 
and  crafty  Frenchwoman.  Such  a  woman  was  Louisa,  c  lady 
of  the  Plouse  of  Querouaille,  whom  our  rude  ancestors  called 
Madam  Carwell.  She  was  soon  triumphant  over  all  her  rivals, 
was  created  Duchess  of  Portsmouth,  was  loaded  with  wealth, 
and  obtained  a  dominion  which  ended  only  with  the  life  of 
Charles. 

The  most  important  conditions  of  the  alliance  between  the 
crowns  wero  digested  into  a  secret  treaty  which  was  signed  at 
Dover  in  May,  1670,  just  ten  years  after  the  day  on  which 
Charles  had  landed  at  that  very  port  amidst  the  acclamations 
and  joyful  tears  of  a  too  confiding  people. 

By  this  treaty  Charles  bound  himself  to  make  public  pro- 
fession of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  to  join  his  arms  to 
those  of  Lewis  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  the  power  of  the 
United  Provinces,  and  to  employ  the  whole  strength  of  Eng- 
land, by  land  and  sea,  in  support  of  the  rights  of  the  House  of 
Bourbon  to  the  vast  monarchy  of  Spain.  L^^wis,  on  the  other 
hand,  engaged  to  pay  a  large  subsidy,  and  promised  that,  if  any 
insurrection  should  break  out  in  Enslaud,  he  would  send  an 
army  at  his  own  charge  to  supj^ort  his  ally. 

This  compact  was  made  with  gloomy  auspices.  Six  weeks 
after  it  had  been  signed  and  sealed,  the  charming  princess, 
whose  influence  over  her  brother  and  brother  in  law  had  been 
so  pernicious  to  her  country,  was  no.  more.  Her  death  gave 
rise  to  horrible  suspicions  which,  for  c  moment,  seemed  likely 
to  interrupt  the  newly  formed  friendship  between  the  Houses 
of  Stuart  and  Bourbon  :  but  in  a  short  time  fresh  assurances  of 
undiminished  good  will  were  exchanged  between  theco:ifedei'atej>. 

The  Duke  of  York,  too  dull  to  apprehend  danger,  or  too 
fanatical  to  care  about  it,  was  impatient  to  see  the  article  touch- 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  197 

ing  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  carried  into  immediate  execu- 
tion :  but  Lewis  had  the  wisdom  to  perceive  that,  if  this  course 
were  taken,  there  would  be  such  an  explosion  in  England  as 
would  probably  frustrate  those  parts  of  the  plan  which  he  had 
most  at  heart.  It  was  therefore  determined  that  Charles  should 
still  call  himself  a  Protestant,  and  should  still,  at  high  festivals, 
receive  the  sacrament  according  to  the  ritual  of  the  Church  of 
England.  His  more  scrupulous  brother  ceased  to  appear  in  the 
royal  chapel. 

About  this  time  died  the  Duchess  of  York,  dauditer  of  the 
banished  Earl  of  Clarendon.  She  had  been,  during  some  years, 
a  concealed  Roman  Catholic.  She  left  two  daughters,  Mary 
and  Anne,  afterwards  successively  Queens  of  Great  Britain. 
They  were  bred  Protestants  by  the  positive  command  of  the 
King,  who  knew  that  it  would  be  vain  for  him  to  profess  him- 
self a  member  of  the  Church  of  England,  if  children  who  seemed 
likely  to  inherit  his  throne  were,  by  his  permission,  brought  up 
as  members  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 

The  principal  servants  of  the  crown  at  this  time  were  men 
whose  names  have  justly  acquired  an  unenviable  notoriety.  We 
must  take  heed,  however,  that  we  do  not  load  their  memory 
with  infamy  which  of  right  belongs  to  their  master.  For  the 
treaty  of  Dover  the  King  himself  is  chiefly  answerable.  He 
held  conferences  on  it  with  the  French  agents  :  he  wrote  many 
letters  concerning  it  with  his  own  hand  :  he  was  the  jierson 
who  first  suggested  the  most  disgraceful  articles  which  it  con- 
tained ;  and  he  carefully  concealed  some  of  those  articles  from 
the  majority  of  his  Cabinet. 

Few  things  in  our  history  are  more  curious  than  the  origin 
and  growth  of  the  power  now  possessed  by  the  Cabinet.  From 
an  early  period  the  Kings  of  England  had  been  assisted  by  a 
Privy  Council  co  which  the  law  assigned  many  important  func- 
tions and  duties.  During  several  centuries  this  body  deliberated 
on  the  gravest  and  most  delicate  affairs.  But  by  degrees  its  char- 
acter changed.  It  became  too  lai'ge  for  despatch  and  secrecy. 
The  I'ank  of  Privy  Councillor  was  often  bestowed  as  an  honorary 
distinction  on  jiersons  to  whom  nothing  was  confided,  and  whose 


198  HL'iTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

opinion  was  never  ask'^'d.  The  sovereign,  on  the  most  important 
occasions,  resorted  for  advice  to  a  small  knot  of  leading  minis- 
ters. The  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  this  course  wfere 
early  pointed  out  by  Bacon,  with  his  usual  judgment  and 
sagacity :  but  it  was  not  till  after  the  Restoration  that  the 
interior  council  began  to  attract  general  notice.  During  many 
years  old  fashioned  politicians  continued  to  regard  the  Cabinet 
as  an  unconstitutional  and  dangerous  board.  Nevertheless,  it 
constantly  became  more  and  more  important.  It  at  length 
drew  to  itself  the  chief  executive  power,  and  has  now  been 
regarded,  during  several  generations,  as  an  essential  part  of  our 
polity^  Yet,  strange  to  say,  it  still  continues  to  be  altogether 
unknown  to  the  law:  the  names  of  the  noblemen  and  gentlemen 
who  compose  it  are  never  officially  announced  to  the  public :  no 
record  is  kept  of  its  meetings  and  resolutions  ;  nor  has  its  exist- 
ence ever  been  recognised  by  any  Act  of  Parliam  nt. 

During  some  years  the  word  Cabal  was  popularly  used  as 
synonymous  with  Cabinet.  But  it  happened  by  a  whimsical 
coincidence  that,  in  1671,  the  Cabinet  consisted  of  five  persons 
the  initial  letters  of  whose  names  made  up  the  word  Cabal  ; 
Clifford,  Arlington,  Buckingham,  Ashley,  and  Lauderdale. 
These  ministers  were  therefore  emphatically  called  the  Cabal ; 
and  they  soon  made  that  appellation  so  infamous  that  it  has 
never  since  their  time  been  used  except  as  a  term  >f  reproach. 

Sir  Thomas  Clifford  was  a  Commissioner  of  the  Treasury, 
and  had  greatly  distinguished  himself  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
Of  the  members  of  the  Cabal  he  was  the  most  respectable.  For, 
with  a  fiery  and  imperious  temper,  he  had  a  strong  though  a 
lamentably  perverted  sense  of  duty  and  honour. 

Henry  Bennet,  Lord  Arlington,  then  Secretary  of  State,  had, 
since  he  came  to  manhood,  resided  principally  on  the  Continent, 
and  had  learned  that  cosmopolitan  indifference  to  constitutions 
and  religions  wliich  is  ofton  observable  in  persons  whose  life  has 
been  passed  in  vagrant  diplomacy.  If  there  was  any  form  of 
government  which  he  liked  it  was  that  of  France.  If  there  was 
any  Church  for  wiiich  he  felt  a  preference,  it  was  that  of  Rome. 
He  had  some  talent  for  coDyepsatipn,  and  some  talent  also  foy 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  199 

transacting  the  ordinary  business  of  office.  He  had  learned,  dur- 
ing a  life  passed  in  travelling-  and  negotiating,  the  art  of  accom- 
modating his  language  and  deportment  to  the  society  in  which 
he  found  himself.  His  vivacity  in  the  closet  amused  the  King  : 
his  gravity  in  debates  and  conferences  imposed  on  the  public  ; 
and  he  had  succeeded  in  attaching  to  himself,  partly  by  services 
and  partly  by  hopes',  a  considerable  number  of  personal  re- 
tainers. 

Buckingham.  Ashley,  and  Lauderdale  were  men  in  v/hom  the 
fmmorality  which  was  epidemic  among  the  politicians  of  that 
age  appeared  in  its  most  malignant  tji^e,  but  variously  modi- 
fied by  great  diversities  of  temper  and  understanding.  Buck- 
ingham was  a  sated  man  of  pleasure,  who  had  turned  to  ambition 
as  to  a  pastime.  As  he  had  tried  to  amuse  himself  with  architec- 
ture and  music,  with  Avriting  farces  and  with  seeking  for  the 
philosopher's  stone,  so  he  now  tried  to  amuse  himself  with  a  se- 
cret negotiation  and  a  Dutch  war.  He  had  already,  rather  from 
fickleness  and  love  of  novelty  than  from  any  deep  design,  been 
faithless  to  every  party.  At  one  time  he  had  ranked  among  the 
Cavaliers.  At  another  time  warrants  had  been  out  against  him 
for  maintainin-T  a  treasonable  correspondence  with  the  remains 
of  the  Republican  party  in  the  city.  He  was  now  again  a  cour- 
tier, and  was  eager  to  win  the  favour  of  the  King  by  services 
from  which  the  most  illustrious  of  those  v»'ho  had  fought  and  suf- 
fered for  the  royal  house  would  have  recoiled  with  horror. 

Ashley,  with  a  far  stronger  head,  and  with  a  far  fiercer  and 
more  earnest  ambition,  had  been  equally  versatile.  But  Ash- 
ley's versatility  was  the  effect,  not  of  levity,  but  of  deliberate 
selfishness.  He  had  served  and  betrayed  a  succession  of  gov- 
ernmeutj .  But  he  had  timed  all  his  treacheries  so  well  that, 
through  all  revolutions,  his  fortunes  had  constantly  been  rising. 
The  multitude,  struck  with  admiration  by  a  prosperity  which, 
while  everything  else  was  constantly  changing,  remained  un- 
changeable, attributed  to  him  a  prescience  almost  miraculous, 
and  likened  him  to  the  Hebrew  statesman  of  whom  it  is  written 
that  his  counsel  was  as  if  a  man  had  inquired  of  the  oracle  ©f 
God. 


20G  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Lauderdale,  loud  and  coarse  both  in  mirth  and  anger,  wae 
perhaps,  under  the  outward  show  of  boisterous  frankness,  the 
most  dishonest  man  in  the  whole  Cabal.  lie  had  made  himself 
conspicuous  among  the  Scotch  insurgents  of  1638  by  his  zeal  for 
the  Covenant.  He  was  accused  of  having  been  deeply  con- 
cerned in  the  sale  of  Charles  the  First  to  tlie  Englii;h  Pai'liament, 
and  Vv^as  therefore,  in  the  estimation  of  good  Cavaliers,  a  traitor, 
if  possible,  of  a  w^orse  description  than  those  who  had  sate  in  the 
High  Court  of  Justice.  He  often  talked  with  a  noisy  jocularity 
of  the  days  when  he  was  a  canter  and  a  rebel.  He  was  now  the 
chief  instrument  employed  by  the  court  in  the  work  of  for- 
cing episcopacy  on  his  reluctant  countrymen  ;  nor  did  he  in  that 
cause  shrink  from  the  uns{)aring  use  of  the  sword,  the  halter, 
and  the  boot.  Yet  those  who  knew  him  knew  that  thirty 
years  had  made  no  change  in  his  real  sentiments,  that  he  still 
hated  the  memory  of  Charles  the  First,  and  that  he  still  pre- 
ferred the  Presbyterian  form  of  church  government  to  every 
other. 

Unscrupulous  as  Buckingham,  Ashley,  and  Lauderdale  were, 
it  was  not  thouojht  safe  to  intrust  to  them  the  Kin^r's  intention 
of  declaring  himself  a  Roman  Catholic.  A  false  treaty,  in  which 
the  article  concernincj  relijjion  was  omitted,  was  shown  to  them. 
The  names  and  seals  of  Clifford  and  Arlington  are  affixed  to  the 
genuine  treaty.  Both  these  statesmen  had  a  partiality  for  the 
old  Church,  a  partiality  which  the  brave  and  vehement  Clifford 
in  no  long  time  manfully  avowed,  but  wliich  the  colder  and 
meaner  Arlington  concealed,  till  the  near  approach  of  death 
scared  him  into  sincerity.  The  three  other  cabinet  ministers, 
however,  were  not  men  to  be  kept  easily  in  the  dark,  and  prob- 
ably suspected  more  than  was  distinctly  avowed  to  them.  They 
(\'ere  certainly  privy  to  all  the  political  engagements  contracted 
with  France,  and  were  not  ashamed  to  receive  large  gratifica- 
tions from  Lewis. 

The  first  object  of  Charles  was  to  obtain  from  the  Commons 
supplies  which  might  be  employed  in  executing  the  secret  treaty.; 
The  Cabal,  holding  power  at  a  time  when  our  government  was 
in  a  state  of  transition,  united  in  itself  two  different  kinds  of 


...NTA  SAKbARA.  CAU^O*..      • 

JJZ  V  g  T 

UNDEK    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  201 

vices  belonging  to  two  diiferentages  and  to  two  different  systems. 
As  those  five  evil  counsellors  were  among  the  last  English 
statesmen  who  seriously  thought  of  destroying  the  Parliament, 
so  they  were  the  first  English  statesmen-who  attempted  exten- 
sively to  corrupt  it.  We  find  in  their  policy  at  once  the  latest 
trace  of  the  Thorough  of  Strafford,  and  the  earliest  trace  of  that 
methodical  bribery  wliich  was  afterwards  practiced  by  Walpole. 
They  soon  perceived,  however,  that,  though  the  House  of  Com- 
mons was  chiefly  composed  of  Cavaliers,  and  though  places  and 
French  gold  had  been  lavished  on  the  members,  there  was  no 
chance  that  even  the  least  odious  parts  of  the  scheme  arranged 
at  Dover  would  be  supported  by  a  majority.  It  was  necessary 
to  have  recourse  to  fraud.  The  King  professed  great  zeal  for 
the  princi23les  of  the  Triple  Alliance,  and  pretended  that,  in  or- 
der to  hold  the  ambition  of  France  in  check,  it  would  be  neces- 
sary to  augment  the  fleet.  The  Commons  fell  into  the  snare, 
and  voted  a  grant  of  eight  hundred  thousand  poui>ds.  The  Par- 
liament was  instantly  prorogued  ;  and  the  court,  thus  emanci- 
pated from  control,  j^roceeded  to  the  execution  of  the  great  de- 
sign. 

The  financial  difficulties  however  were  serious.  A  war  with 
Holland  could  be  carried  on  only  at  enormous  cost.  The  ordi' 
nary  revenue  was  not  more  than  sufficient  to  support  the  gov- 
ernment in  time  of  peace.  The  eight  hundred  thousand  pounds 
out  of  which  the  Commons  had  just  been  tricked  would  not 
defray  the  naval  and  military  charge  of  a  single  year  of  hostil- 
ities. After  the  terrible  lesson  given  by  the  Long  Parliament, 
even  the  Cabal  did  not  venture  to  recommend  benevolences  or 
shipmoney.  In  this  perplexity  Asliley  and  Clifford  proposed 
a  flagitious  breach  of  public  faith.  The  goldsmiths  of  London 
were  then  not  only  dealers  in  the  precious  metals,  but  also  bank- 
ers, and  were  in  the  habit  of  advancing  large  sums  of  money  to 
the  government.  In  return  for  these  advances  they  received 
assignments  on  the  revenue,  and  were  repaid  with  interest  as 
the  taxes  came  in.  About  thirteen  hundred  thousand  pounds 
had  been  in  this  way  intrusted  to  the  honour  of  the  state.  On 
a  sudden  it  was  announced  that  it  was  not  convenient  to  oav 


202  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

the  principal,  and  that  the  lenders  must  content  themselves  with 
interest.  They  were  consequently  unable  to  meet  their  own 
engagements.  The  Exchange  was  in  an  uproar  :  several  great 
mercantile  houses  broke ;  and  dismay  and  distress  spread 
through  all  society.  -Meanwhile  rapid  strides  were  made  towards 
despotism.  Proclamations,  dispensing  with  Acts  of  Parliament, 
or  enjoining  what  only  Parliament  could  lawfully  enjoin,  ap- 
peared in  rapid  succession.  Of  these  edicts  the  most  important 
was  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence.  By  this  instrument  the 
penal  laws  against  Roman  Catholics  were  set  aside ;  and,  that 
the  real  object  of  the  measure  might  not  be  perceived,  the  laws 
against  Protestant  Nonconformists  were  also  suspended. 

A  few  days  after  the  appearance  of  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dulgence, war  was  proclaimed  against  the  United  Provinces. 
By  sea  the  Dutch  maintained  the  struggle  with  honour ;  but 
on  land  they  were  at  first  borne  down  by  irresistible  force.  A 
great  French  army  passed  the  Rhine.  Fortress  after  fortress 
opened  its  gates.  Three  of  the  seven  provinces  of  the  federa- 
tion were  occupied  by  the  invaders.  The  fires  of  the  hostile 
camp  were  seen  from  the  top  of  the  Stadthouse  of  Amsterdam. 
The  Republic,  thus  fiercely  assailed  from  without,  was  torn  at 
the  same  time  by  internal  dissensions.  The  government  was 
in  the  hands  of  a  close  oligarchy  of  powerful  burghers.  There 
were  numerous  selfelected  Town  Councils,  each  of  which  exer- 
cised, within  its  own  sphere,  many  of  the  rights  of  sovereif^ntv. 
These  councils  sent  delegates  to  the  Provincial  States,  and  the 
Provincial  States  again  sent  delegates  to  the  States  General. 
A  hereditary  first  magistrate  was  no  essential  part  of  this  polity. 
Nevertheless  one  family,  singularly  fertile  of  great  men,  had 
gradually  obtained  a  large  and  somewhat  indefinite  authority. 
William,  first  of  the  name.  Prince  of  Orange  Nassau,  and  Stadt- 
holder  of  Holland,  had  headed  the  memorable  insurrection 
against  Spain.  His  son  Maurice  had  been  Captain  General 
and  first  minister  of  the  States,  had,  by  eminent  abilities  and 
public  services,  and  by  some  treacherous  and  cruel  actions, 
raised  himself  to  almost  kingly  power,  and  had  bequeathed  a 
great  part  of  that  power  to  his  family.     The  influence  of  the 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  203 

Stadtholders  was  an  object  of  extreme  jealousy  to  the  munici- 
pal oligarchy.  But  the  army,  and  that  great  body  of  citizens 
which  was  excluded  from  all  share  in  the  government,  looked 
on  the  Burgomasters  and  Deputies  with  a  dislike  resembling 
the  dislike  with  which  the  legions  and  the  common  people  of 
Rome  regarded  the  Senate,  and  were  as  zealous  for  the  House 
of  Orange  as  the  legions  and  the  common  people  of  Rome  for 
the  House  of  C;i?sar.  The  Stadtholder  commanded  the  forces 
of  the  commonwealth,  disposed  of  all  militaiy  commands,  had 
a  large  share  of  the  civil  patronage,  and  was  surrounded  by 
pomp  almost  regal. 

Prince  William  the  Second  had  been  strongly  opposed  by 
the  oligarchical  party.  His  life  had  terminated  in  the  year 
1 650,  amidst  great  civil  troubles.  He  died  childless  :  the  ad- 
herents of  his  house  were  left  for  a  short  time  without  a  head  ; 
and  the  powers  which  he  had  exercised  were  divided  among 
the  Town  Councils,  the  Provincial  States,  and  the  States  Gen- 
eral. 

But,  a  few  days  after  William's  death,  his  widow,  Mary, 
daughter  of  Charles  the  first,  King  of  Great  Britain,  gave  birth 
to  a  son,  destined  to  raise  the  glory  and  authority  of  the  House 
of  Nassau  to  the  highest  point,  to  save  the  United  Provinces 
from  slavery,  to  curb  the  power  of  France,  and  to  establish  the 
English  constitution  on  a  lasting  foundation. 

This  Prince,  named  W^illiam  Henry,  was  from  his  birth  an 
object  of  serious  apprehension  to  the  party  now  supreme  in 
Holland,  and  of  loyal  attachment  to  the  old  friends  of  his  line. 
He  enjoyed  high  consideration  as  the  possessor  of  a  splendid 
fortune,  as  the  chief  of  one  of  the  most  illustrious  houses  in 
Europe,  as  a  Magnate  of  the  German  empire,  as  a  prince  of 
the  blood  royal  of  England,  and,  above  all,  as  the  descendant 
of  the  founders  of  Batavian  liberty.  But  the  high  office  which 
had  once  been  considered  as  hereditary  in  his  family  remained 
in  abeyance  ;  and  the  intention  of  the  aristocratical  party  was 
that  there  should  never  be  another  Stadtholder.  The  want  of 
a  fipst  magistrate  was,  to  a  great  extent,  supplied  by  the  Grand 
Pensionary  of  the  Province  of  Holland,  John  De  Witt,  whose 


204  HISTORY    OP   ENGLAND. 

abilities,  firmness,  and   integrity  bad  raised  bim   to  unrivalled 
autbority  in  tbe  councils  of  tbe  municipal  oligarcby. 

The  French  invasion  produced  a  complete  change.  The 
suffering  and  terrified  people  raged  fiercely  against  the  govern- 
ment. In  their  madness  they  attacked  tbe  bravest  captains 
and  the  ablest  statesmen  of  the  distressed  commonwealth.  De 
Ruyter  was  insulted  by  the  rabble.  De  Witt  was  torn  in 
pieces  before  tbe  gate  of  the  palace  of  the  States  General  at 
the  Hague.  The  Prince  of  Orange,  who  had  no  share  in  tbe 
guilt  of  tbe  murder,  but  who,  on  this  occasion,  as  on  another 
lamentable  occasion  twenty  years  later,  extended  to  crimes  per- 
petrated in  his  cause  an  indulgence  which  has  left  a  stain  on 
his  glory,  became  chief  of  tbe  government  without  a  rival. 
Young  as  he  was,  his  ardent  and  unconquerable  spirit,  though 
disguised  by  a  cold  and  sullen  manner,  soon  roused  the  courage 
of  his  dismayed  countrymen.  It  was  in  vain  that  both  his 
uncle  and  the  French  King  attempted  by  splendid  offers  to 
seduce  him  from  tbe  cause  of  the  Republic.  To  the  States 
General  he  spoke  a  high  and  inspiriting  language.  He  even 
ventured  to  suggest  a  scheme  which  has  an  aspect  of  antique 
heroism,  and  which,  if  it  had  been  accomplished,  Avould  have 
been  tbe  noblest  subject  for  epic  song  that  is  to  be  found  in  the 
whole  compass  of  modern  history.  He  told  tbe  deputies  that, 
even  if  .their  watal  soil  and  the  marvels  with  which  human  in- 
dustry had  covered  it  were  buried  under  the  ocean,  all  was  not 
lost.  The  Hollanders  might  survive  Holland.  Liberty  and 
pure  religion,  driven  by  tyrants  and  bigots  from  Europe,  might 
take  refuge  in  the  farthest  isles  of  Asia.  The  shipping  in  the 
ports  of  the  republic  would  suffice  to  carry  two  hundred  thou- 
sand emigrants  to  the  Indian  Archipelago.  There  the  Dutch 
commonwealth  might  commence  a  new  and  more  glorious  ex- 
istence, and  might  rear,  under  the  Southern  Cross,  amidst  the 
sugar  canes  and  nutmeg  trees,  the  Exchangs  of  a  wealthier 
Amsterdam,  and  tbe  schools  of  a  more  learned  Leyden.  The 
national  spirit  swelled  and  rose  higli.  The  terms  offered  by 
the  allies  were  firmly  rejected.  Tbe  dykes  were  opened.  The 
whole  country  was  turned  into   one  great  lake,  from  which  the 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  205 

cities,  with  their  ramparts  and  steeples,  rose  like  islands.  The 
invaders  were  forced  to  save  themselves  from  destruction  by  a 
precipitate  retreat.  Lewis,  who,  though  he  sometimes  thought 
it  necessary  to  appear  at  the  head  of  his  troops,  greatly  pre- 
ferre<l  a  palace  to  a  camp,  had  already  returned  to  enjoy  the 
adulation  of  poets  and  the  smiles  of  ladies  in  the  newly  planted 
alleys  of  Versailles. 

And  now  the  tide  turned  fast.  The  event  of  the  maritime 
war  had  been  doubtful ;  by  land  the  United  Provinces  had  ob- 
tained a  respite ;  and  a  respite,  though  short,  was  of  infinite 
importance.  Alarmed  by  the  vast  designs  of  Lewis,  both  the 
branches  of  the  great  House  of  Austria  sprang  to  arms.  Spain 
and  Holland,  divided  by  the  memory  of  ancient  wrongs  and 
humiliations,  were  reconciled  by  the  nearness  of  the  common 
dau'fer.  From  every  part  of  Germany  troops  poured  towards 
the  Rhine.  The  English  government  had  already  expended 
all  the  funds  which  had  been  obtained  by  pillaging  the  public 
creditor.  No  loan  could  be  expected  from  the  City.  An  at- 
tempt to  raihe  taxes  by  the  royal  authority  would  have  at  once 
produced  a  rtbellion  ;  and  Lewis,  who  had  now  to  maintain  a 
contest  against  half  Europe,  was  in' no  condition  to  furnish  the 
means  ol'  coeicing  the  people  of  England.  It  was  necessary  to 
convoke  the  Parliament. 

In  the  spring  of  1673,  therefore,  the  Houses  reassembled  after 
a  recess  of  near  two  years.  Clifford,  now  a  peer  and  Lord 
Treasurer,  and  Ashley,  now  Earl  of  Shaftesbury  and  Lord 
Chancellor,  were  the  persons  on  whom  the  King  principally  re- 
lied as  Parliamentary  managers.  The  Country  Party  instantly 
began  to  attack  the  policy  of  the  Cabal.  The  attack  was  made, 
not  in  the  way  of  storm,  but  by  slow  and  scientific  approaches. 
The  Commons  at  first  held  out  hopes  that  they  would  give  sup- 
port to  the  king's  foreign  policy,  but  insisted  that  he  should  pur- 
chase that  support  by  abandoning  his  whole  system  of  domestic 
policy.  Their  chief  object  was  to  obtain  the  revocation  of  the 
Declaration  of  Indulgence.  Of  all  the  many  unpopular  steps 
taken  by  the  government  the  most  unpopular  was  the  publishing 
of  this  Declaration.     The  most  opposite  sentioients  had  been 


206  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

shocked  by  an  act  so  liberal,  done  in  a  manner  so  despotic.  AB 
the  enemies  of  religious  freedom,  and  all  the  friends  of  civil 
freedom,  found  themselves  on  the  same  side ;  and  these  two 
classes  made  up  nineteen  twentieths  of  the  nation.  The  zeal- 
ous churchman  exclaimed  against  the  favour  which  had  been 
shown  both  to  the  Papist  and  to  the  Puritan.  The  Puritan, 
though  he  might  rejoice  in  the  suspension  of  the  persecution  by 
which  he  had  been  harassed,  felt  little  gratitude  for  a  toleration 
which  he  was  to  share  with  Antichrist.  And  all  Englishmen 
who  valued  liberty  and  law,  saw  with  uneasiness  the  deep  in- 
road which  the  prerogative  had  made  into  the  province  of  the 
legislature. 

It  must  in  candour  be  admitted  that  the  constitutional  ques- 
tion was  then  not  quite  free  from  obscurity.  Our  ancient  Kings 
had  undoubtedly  claimed  and  exercised  the  right  of  suspending 
the  operation  of  penal  laws.  The  tribunals  had  recognised  that 
right.  Parliaments  had  suffered  it  to  pass  unchallenged.  Tliat 
some  such  right  was  inherent  in  the  crown,  few  even  of  the 
Country  Party  ventured,  in  the  face  of  precedent  and  authority, 
to  deny.  Yet  it  was  clear  that,  if  this  prerogative  were  without 
limit,  the  En  lish  government  could  scarcely  be  distinguished 
from  a  pure  despotism.  That  there  was  a  limit  was  fully  ad- 
mitted by  the  King  and  his  ministers.  Whether  the  Declaration 
of  Indulgence  lay  within  or  without  the  limit  was  the  question  ; 
and  neither  party  could  succeed  iti  tracing  any  line  which  would 
bear  examination.  Some  opponents  of  the  government  com- 
plained that  the  Declaration  suspended  not  less  than  forty  stat- 
utes. But  why  not  forty  as  well  as  one  ?  There  was  an  orator 
who  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  the  King  might  constitutionally 
dispense  with  bad  laws,  but  not  with  good  laws.  The  absurdity 
of  such  a  distinction  it  is  needless  to  expose.  The  doctrine 
which  seems  to  have  been  generally  received  in  the  House  of 
Commons  was,  that  the  dispensing  power  was  confined  to  secu- 
lar matters,  and  did  not  extend  to  laws  enacted  for  the  security 
of  the  established  religion.  Yet,  as  the  King  was  supreme  head 
of  the  Church,  it  should  seem  that,  if  he  possessed  the  dispens- 
ing power  at  all,  he  might  well  possess  that  power  where  the 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  207 

Church  was  concerned.  When  the  courtiers  on  the  other  side 
attempted  to  point  out  the  bounds  of  this  prerogative,  they  were 
not  more  successful  than  the  opposition  had  been. 

The  truth  is  that  the  dispensing  power  was  a  great  anomaly 
in  politics.  It  was  utterly  inconsistent  in  theory  with  the  prin- 
ciples of  mixed  government :  but  it  had  grown  up  in  times  when 
people  troubled  themselves  little  about  theories.*  It  had  not 
been  very  grossly  abused  in  practice.  It  had  therefore  been 
tolerated,  and  had  gradually  acquired  a  kind  of  prescription. 
At  length  it  was  employed,  after  a  long  interval,  in  an  enlight- 
e>ied  age,  and  at  an  important  conjuncture,  to  an  extent  never 
before  known,  and  for  a  purpose  generally  abhorred.  It  was 
instantly  subjected  to  a  severe  scrutiny.  Men  did  not,  indeed, 
at  first,  venture  to  pronounce  it  altogether  unconstitutional.  But 
they  began  to  perceive  that  it  was  at  direct  variance  with  the 
spirit  of  the  constitution,  and  would,  if  left  unchecked,  turn  the 
English  government  from  a  limited  into  an  absolute  monarchy. 

Under  the  influence  of  such  apprehensions,  the  Commons 
denied  the  King's  right  to  dispense,  not  indeed  with  "all  penal 
statutes,  but  with  penal  statutes  in  matters  ecclesiastical,  and 
gave  him  plainly  to  understand  that,  unless  he  renounced  that 
right,  they  would  grant  no  supply  for  the  Dutch  war.  He,  for 
a  moment,  showed  some  inclination  to  put  everything  to  hazard  ; 
but  he  was  strongly  advised  by  Lewis  to  submit  to  necessity, 
and  to  wait  for  better  times,  when  the  French  armies,  now  em- 
ployed in  an  arduous  struggle  on  the  Continent,  might  be  avail- 
able for  the  purpose  of  suppressing  discontent  in  England.  In 
the  Cabal  itself  the  signs  of  disunion  and  treachery  began  to 
appear.  Shaftesbury,  with  his  proverbial  sagacity,  saw  that  a 
violent  reaction  was  at  hand,  and  that  all  things  were  tending 
towards  a  crisis  resembling  that  of  1640.  He  was  determined 
that  such  a  crisis  should  not  find  him  in  the  situation  of  Straf- 
ford. He  therefore  turned  suddenly  round,  and  acknowledged, 
in  the  House  of  Lords,  that  the  Declaration  was  illegal.     The 

*  The  most  sensible  thing  said  in  the  House  of  Commons,  on  this  suhject,  came 
from  Sir  William  Coventry  :—"  Our  ancestors  never  did  draw  a  line  to  circuna. 
scribe  prerogative  and  liberty." 


208  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

King,  thus  deserted  by-his  ally  and  by  his  Chancellor,  yielded, 
cancelled  the  Declaration,  and  solemnly  promised  that  it  should 
never  be  drawn  into  precedent. 

Even  this  concession  was  insufficient.  The  Commons,  not 
content  with  having  forced  their  sovereign  to  annul  the  Indul- 
gence, next  extorted  his  unwilling  assent  to  a  celebrated  law, 
which  continued  in  force  do^vn  to  the  reign  of  George  the 
Fourth,  This  law,  known  as  the  Test  Act,  provided  that  all 
persons  holding  any  office,  civil  or  military,  should  take  the  oath 
of  supremacy,  should  subscribe  a  declaration  against  transub- 
stantiation,  and  should  publicly  receive  the  sacrament  according 
to  the  rites  of  the  Church  of  England.  The  preamble  expressef* 
hostility  only  to  the  Papists  :  but  the  enacting  clauses  were 
scarcely  more  unfavourable  to  the  Papists  than  to  the  rigid 
Puritans.  The  Puritans,  however,  terrified  at  the  evident 
leaning  of  the  court  towards  Popery,  and  encouraged  by  some, 
churchmen  to  hope  that,  as  soon  as  the  Roman  Catholics  should 
have  been  effectually  disarmed,  relief  would  be  extended  to 
Protestant  Nonconformists,  made  little  opposition  ;  nor  could 
the  King,  who  was  in  extreme  want  of  money,  venture  to  with- 
hold his  sanction.  The  act  was  passed  ;  and  the  Duke  of  York 
was  consequently  under  the  necessity  of  resigning  the  great 
place  of  Lord  High  Admiral. 

Hitherto  the  Commons  had  not  declared  against  the  Dutch 
war.  But,  when  the  King  had,  in  return  for  money  cautiously 
doled  out,  relinquished  his  whole  plan  of  domestic  policy,  they 
fell  impetuously  on  his  foreign  policy.  They  requested  him  to 
dismiss  Buckingham  and  liauderdale  from  his  councils  forever, 
and  appointed  a  committee  to  consider  the  propriety  of  impeach- 
ing Arlington.  In  a  short  time  the  Cabal  was  no  more.  Clif- 
ford, who,  alone  of  the  five,  had  any  claim  to  be  regarded  as  an 
honest  man,  refused  to  take  the  new  test,  laid  down  his  white 
staff,  and  retired  to  his  country  seat.  Aiiington  quitted  the 
post  of  Secretary  of  State  for  a  quiet  and  dignified  employment 
vn  the  Royal  household.  Shaftesbury  and  Buckingham  made 
their  peace  with  the  opposition,  and  appeared  at  the  head  of 
the  stormy  democracy  of  the  cit3\     Lauderdale,  however,  still 


UNDER    CHAULES    THE    SECOND.  209 

<;ontinued  to    be  minister  for  Scotch  affairs,   with  which  the 
Enirlish  Parliament  could  not  interfere. 

And  now  the  Commons  nrged  the  King  to  make  peace  with 
Holland,  and  expressly  declared  that  no  more  supplies  s/iould 
be  granted  for  the  war,  unless  it  should  appear  that  the  enemy 
obstinately  refused  to  consent  to  reasonable  terms.  Charles 
found  it  necessary  to  postpone  to  a  more  convenient  season  all 
thought  of  executing  the  treaty  of  Dover,  and  to  cajole  the 
nation  by  pretending  to  return  to  the  policy  of  the  Triple 
Alliance.  T(  mple,  who,  dui-ing  the  ascendency  of  the  Cabal, 
had  lived  in  seclusion  among  his  books  and  flower  beds,  was 
called  forth  from  his  hermitage.  By  his  instrumentality  a 
separate  peace  was  concluded  with  the  United  Provinces  ;  and 
he  again  became  ambassador  at  the  Hague,  where  his  presence 
was  regarded  as  a  sure  pledge  for  the  sincerity  of  his  court. 

The  chief  direction  of  affairs  was  now  intrusted  to  Sir 
Thomas  Osborne,  a  Yorkshire  baronet,  who  had,  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  shown  eminent  talents  for  business  and  debate. 
Osborne  became  Lord  Treasurer,  and  was  poon  created  Earl  of 
^  Danby.  He  was  not  a  man  whose  character,  if  tried  by  any 
high  standard  of  morality,  would  appear  to  merit  approbation. 
He  was  greedy  of  wealth  and  honours,  corrupt  himself,  and  a 
corrupter  of  others.  The  Cabal  had  bequeathed  to  him  the  art 
of  bribing  Parliaments,  an  art  still  rude,  and  giving  little  promise 
of  the  rare  perfection  to  which  it  was  brought  in  the  following 
century.  He  improved  greatly  on  the  plan  of  the  first  inventors. 
They  liad  merely  purchased  orators  :  but  every  man  who  had  a 
vote,  might  sell  himself  to  Danb3\  Yet  the  new  minister  must 
not  be  confounded  with  the  negotiators  of  Dover.  He  was  not 
without  the  feelinofs  of  an  Englishman  and  a  Protestant ;  nor 
did  he,  in  his  solicitude  for  his  own  interests,  ever  wholly  forget 
the  interests  of  his  country  and  of  his  religion.  He  was  desirous, 
indeed,  to  exalt  the  prerogative :  but  the  means  by  which  he 
proposed  to  exalt  it  were  widely  different  from  those  which  had 
been  contemplated  by  Arlington  and  Clifford.  The  thought  of 
establ'shing  arbitrary  power,  by  calling  in  the  aid  of  foreign  arms, 
and  bv  reducing  the  kingdom  to  the  rank  of  a  dependent  princi' 

14 


2lO  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

pality,  never  entered  into  his  mind.  His  plan  was  to  rally  round 
the  monarchy  those  classes  which  had  been  the  firm  allies  of  the 
monarchy  during  the  troubles  of  the  preceding  generation,  and 
which  had  been  disgusted  by  the  recent  crimes  and  errors  of  the 
court.  With  the  help  of  the  old  Cavalier  interest,  of  the  nobles, 
of  the  country  gentlemen,  of  the  clergy,  and  of  the  Universities, 
it  might,  he  conceived,  be  possible  to  make  Charles,  not  indeed 
an  absolute  sovereign,  but  a  sovereign  scarcely  less  powerful 
than  Elizabeth  had  been.  x 

Prompted  by  these  feelings,  Danby  formed  the  design  of 
securing  to  the  Cavalier  party  the  exclusive  possession  of  all 
political  power  both  executive  and  legislative.  In  the  year 
1675,  accordingly,  a  bill  was  offered  to  the  Lords  which  provided 
that  no  person  should  hold  any  office,  or  should  sit  in  either 
House  of  Parliament,  without  first  declaring  on  oath  that  he 
considered  resistance  to  the  kingly  power  as  in  all  cases  criminal, 
and  that  he  would  never  endeavour  to  alter  the  government 
either  in  Church  or  State.  During  several  weeks  the  debates, 
divisions,  and  protests  caused  by  this  proposition  kept  the  coun- 
try in  a  state  of  excitement.  The  opposition  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  headed  by  two  members  of  the  Cabal  who  were  desirous 
to  make  their  peace  with  the  nation,  Buckingham  and  Shaftes- 
bury, was  beyond  all  precedent  vehement  and  pertinacious,  and 
at  length  proved  successful.  The  bill  was  not  indeed  rejected, 
but  was  retarded,  mutilated,  and  at  length  suffered  to  drop. 

So  arbitrary  and  so  exclusive  was  Danby's  scheme  of  domes- 
tic policy.  His  opinions  touching  foreign  policy  did  him  more 
honour.  They  were  in  truth  directly  opposed  to  those  of  the 
Cabal  and  differed  little  from  those  of  the  Country  Party.  He 
bitterly  lamented  the  degraded  situation  to  which  England  was 
reduced,  and  declared,  with  more  energy  than  politeness,  that 
his  dearest  wish  was  to  cudgel  the  French  into  a  proper  respect 
for  her.  So  little  did  he  disguise  his  feelings  that,  at  a  great 
banquet  where  the  most  illustrious  dignitaries  of  the  State 
and  of  the  Church  were  assembled,  he  not  very  decorously  filled 
his  glass  to  the  confusion  of  all  who  were  against  a  war  with 
France.     He  would  indeed  most  gladly  have  seen  his  country 


IJNDEU    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  2ll 

united  with  the  powers  which  were  then  combined  against 
Lewis,  and  was  for  that  end  bent  on  placing  Temple,  the  author 
of  the  Triple  Alliance,  at  the  head  of  the  department  which 
directed  foreign  affairs.  But  the  power  of  the  prime  minister 
was  limited.  In  his  most  confidential  letters  he  complained 
that  the  infatuation  of  his  master  prevented  England  from  taking 
her  proper  place  among  European  nations.  Charles  was  insa- 
tiably greedy  of  French  gold  :  he  had  by  no  means  relinquished 
the  hope  that  he  might,  at  some  future  day,  be  able  to  establish 
absolute  monarchy  by  the  help  of  the  French  arms  ;  and  for 
both  reasons  he  wished  to  maintain  a  good  understanding  with 
the  court  of  Versailles. 

Thus  the  sovereign  leaned  towards  one  system  of  foreign  pol- 
itics, and  the  minister  towards  a  system  diametrically  opjjosite. 
Neither  the  sovereign  nor  the  minister,  indeed,  was  of  a  temper 
to  pursue  any  object  with  undeviating  constancy.  Each  occa- 
sionally yielded  to  the  importunity  of  the  other ;  and  their 
jarring  inclinations  and  mutual  concessions  gave  to  the  whole 
administration  a  strangely  capricious  character.  Charles  some- 
times, from  levity  and  indolence,  suffered  Danby  to  take  steps 
Avhich  Lewis  resented  as  mortal  injuries.  Danby,  on  the  other 
hand,  rather  than  relinquish  his  great  place,  sometimes  stooped 
to  compliances  which  caused  him  bitter  pain  and  shame.  The 
King  was  brought  to  consent  to  a  marriage  between  the  Lady 
Mary,  eldest  daughter  and  presumptive  heiress  of  the  Duke  of 
York,  and  William  of  Orange,  the  deadly  enemy  of  France  and 
the  hereditary  champion  of  the  Reformation.  Nay,  the  brave 
Earl  of  Ossory,  son  of  Ormond,  was  sent  to  assist  the  Dutch 
with  some  British  troops,  who,  on  the  most  bloody  day  of  the 
whole  war,  signally  vindicated  the  national  reputation  for  stub- 
born courage.  The  Treasurer,  on  the  other  hand,  was  induced 
not  only  to  connive  at  some  scandalous  pecuniary  transactions 
which  took  place  between  his  master  and  the  court  of  Versailles, 
but  to  become,  unwillingly  indeed  and  ungraciously,  an  agent  in 
those  transactions. 

Meanwhile  the  Country  Party  was  driven  by  two  strong  feel- 
ings   in    two    opposite  directions.       The  popular  leaders  were 


212  HISTORY    OF    KNGLAND. 

afraid  of  the  greatness  of  Lewis,  who  was  not  only  making  head 
against  the  whole  strength  of  the  continental  alliance,  but  was 
even  gaining  ground.  Yet  th'ey  were  afraid  to  entrust  their  own 
King  with  the  means  of  curbing  France,  lest  those  means  should 
be  used  to  destroy  the  liberties  of  England.  Tlie  conflict  be- 
tween these  apprehensions,  both  of  which  were  perfectly  legiti- 
mate, made  the  policy  of  the  Opposition  seem  as  eccentric  and 
fickle  as  that  of  the  Court.  The  Commons  called  for  a  war 
with  France,  till  the  King,  pressed  by  Danby  to  comply  with 
their  wish,  seemed  disposed  to  yield,  and  began  to  raise  an  army. 
But,  as  soon  as  they  saw  that  the  recruiting  had  commenced, 
their  dread  of  Lewis  gave  placo  to  a  nearer  dread.  They  began 
to  fear  that  the  new  levies  might  be  employed  on  a  service  in 
which  Charles  took  much  more  interest  than  in  the  defence  of 
Flanders.  They  therefore  refused  supplies,  and  clamoured  for 
disbanding  as  loudly  as  they  had  just  before  clamoured  for  arm- 
ing. Those  historians  who  have  severely  reprehended  this 
inconsistency  do  not  appear  to  have  made  sufficient  allowance 
for  the  embarrassing  situation  of  subjects  who  have  reason  to 
believe  that  their  prince  is  conspiring  with  a  foreign  and  hostile 
power  against  their  liberties.  To  refuse  him  military  resources 
is  to  leave  the  state  defenceless.  Yet  to  give  him  military 
resources  may  be  only  to  arm  him  against  the  state.  In  such 
circumstances  vacillation  cannot  bo  considered  as  a  proof  of  dis- 
honesty or  even  of  weakness. 

These  jealousies  were  studiously  fomented  by  the  French 
King.  He  had  long  kept  England  passive  by  promising  to 
support  the  throne  against  the  Parliament.  He  now,  alarmed 
at  finding  that  the  patriotic  counsels  of  Danby  seemed  likely  to 
prevail  in  the  closet,  began  to  inflame  the  Parliament  against 
the  throne.  Between  Lewis  and  the  Country  Party  there  was 
one  thing,  and  one  only  in  common,  profound  distrust  of  Charles. 
Could  the  Country  Party  have  been  certain  that  their  sovereign 
meant  only  to  make  war  on  France,  they  would  have  been 
eager  to  support  him.  Could  Lewis  have  been  certain  that  the 
new  levies  were  intended  only  to  make  war  on  the  constitution 
of   England,  he  would  have  made   no   attempt   to  stop  them. 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  213 

But  the  unsteadiness  and  faithlessness  of  Charles  were  such 
that  the  French  Government  and  the  English  opposition,  agree- 
ing in  nothing  else,  agreed  in  disbelieving    his  protestations, 
and  were  equally  desirous  to  keep  him  poor  and  without  an 
army.     Communications  were  opened   between    Barillon,  the 
Ambassador  of  Lewis,  and  those   English  politicians  who  had 
always  professed,  and  who  indeed   sincerely  felt,  the  greatest 
dread  and  dislike  of  the   French    ascendency.     The  most  up- 
right of  the  Country  Party,  William  Lord  Russell,  son  of  the 
Earl  of   Bedford,  did  not   scruple    to    concert  with  a  foreign 
mission   schemes  for   embarrassing  his    own  sovereign.     This 
was  the  whole  extent  of  Russell's  offence.     His  principles  and 
his  fortune  alike  raised  him  above   all  temptations  of  a  sordid 
kind  :  but  there  is  too  much  reason  to  believe  that  some  of  his 
associates  were  less  scrupulous.      It  would  be  unjust  to  impute 
to  them  the  extreme  wickedness  of  taking  bribes  to  injure  their 
country.     On  the  contrary,  they  meant  to  serve  her :  but  it  is 
impossible  to  deny  that  they  were  mean  and  indelicate  enough 
to  let  a  foreign  prince  pay  them  for  serving  her.    Among  those 
who  cannot  be  acquitted  of  this  degrading  charge  was  one  man 
who  is  popularly  considered  as   the   personification  of  public 
spirit,  and  who,  in  spite  of  some  great  moral  and  intellectual 
faults,  has  a  just  claim  to  be  called  a  hero,  a  philosopher,  and  a 
patriot.     It  is  impossible  to  see  withoiit  pain  such  a  name  in 
the  list  of  the  pensioners  of  France.     Yet  it  is  some  consolation 
to  reflect  that,  in  our  time,  a  public  man  would  be  thought  lost 
to  all  sense  of  duty  and  of  shame,  who  should   not  spurn  from 
him  a  temptation  which    conquered  the  virtue  and  the  pride  of 
Algernon  Sydney. 

The  effect  of  these  intrigues  was  that  England,  though  she 
occasionally  took  a  menacing  attitude,  remained  inactive  till 
the  continental  war,  having  lasted  near  seven  years,  was  ter- 
minated by  the  treaty  of  Nimeguen.  The  United  Provinces, 
which  in  1672  had  seemed  to  be  on  the  verge  of  utter  ruin, 
obtained  honourable  and  advantageous  terms.  This'  narrow 
escape  was  generally  ascribed  to  the  ability  and  courage  of  the 
young  Stadtholder.     His   fame  was  great  throughout  Europe, 


214  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

and  especially  among  the  English,  who  regarded  him  as  one  ot 
their  own  princes,  and  rejoiced  to  see  him  the  liusband  of 
their  future  Queen.  France  retained  many  important  towns 
in  the  Low  Countries  and  the  great  province  of  Franche 
Comte.  Almost  the  whole  loss  was  borne  by  the  decaying 
monarchy  of  Spain. 

A  few  months  after  the  termination  of  hostilities  on  the 
Continent  came  a  great  crisis  in  English  politics.  Towards 
such  a  crisis  things  had  been  tending  during  eighteen  years. 
The  whole  stock  of  popularity,  great  as  it  was,  with  which  the 
King  had  commenced  his  administration,  had  long  been  ex- 
pended. To  loyal  enthusiasm  had  succeeded  profound  dis- 
affection. The  public  mind  had  now  measured  back  again  the 
space  over  which  it  had  passed  between  1640  and  1G60,  and 
was  once  more  in  the  state  in  which  it  had  been  when  the  Long 
Parliament  met. 

The  prevailing  discontent  was  compounded  of  many  feelings. 
One  of  these  was  wounded  national  pride.  That  generation 
had  seen  England,  during  a  few  years,  allied  on  equal  terms 
with  France,  victorious  over  Holland  and  Spain,  the  mistress  of 
the  sea,  the  terror  of  Rome,  the  head  of  the  Protestant  interest. 
Her  resources  had  not  diminished ;  and  it  might  have  been  ex- 
pected that  she  would  have  been  at  least  as  highly  considered 
in  Europe  under  a  legitimate  King,  strong  in  the  affection  aud 
willing  obedience  of  his  subjects,  as  she  had  been  under  an 
usurper  whose  utmost  vigilance  and  energy  were  required  to 
keep  down  a  mutinous  people.  Yet  she  had,  in  consequence  of 
the  imbecility  and  meanness  of  her  rulers,  sunk  so  low  that  any 
German  or  Italian  principality  which  brought  five  thousand 
men  into  the  field  was  a  more  important  member  of  the  com- 
monwealth of  nations. 

With  the  sense  of  national  humiliation  was  mingled  anxiety 
for  civil  liberty.  Rumours,  indistinct  indeed,  but  perhaps  the 
more  alarming  by  reason  of  their  indistinctness,  imputed  to 
the  court  a  deliberate  design  against  all  the  constitutional  rights 
of  Englishmen.  It  had  even  been  whispered  that  this  design 
was   to  be  carried  into   effect   by   the  intervention  of  foreign 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  215 

arms.  The  thought  of  such  intervention  made  the  blood,  even 
of  the  Cavaliers,  boil  in  their  veins.  Some  who  had  always 
professed  the  doctrine  of  non-resistance  in  its  full  extent  were 
now  heard  to  mutter  that  there  was  one  limitation  to  that  doc- 
trine. If  a  foreign  force  were  brought  over  to  coerce  the 
nation,  they  would  not  answer  for  their  own  patience. 

But  neither  national  pride  nor  anxiety  for  public  liberty  had 
so  great  an  influence  on  the  popular  mind  as  hatred  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion.  That  hatred  had  become  one  of  the 
ruling  passions  of  the  community,  and  was  as  strong  in  the 
ignorant  and  profane  as  in  those  who  were  Protestant  from  con- 
viction. The  cruelties  of  Mary's  reign,  cruelties  which  even  in 
the  most  accurate  and  sober  narrative  excite  just  detestation, 
and  which  were  neither  accurately  nor  soberly  related  in  the 
popular  martyrologies,  the  conspiracies  against  Elizabeth,  and 
above  all  the  Gunpowder  Plot,  had  left  in  the  minds  of  the 
vulgar  a  deep  and  bitter  feeling  which  was  kept  up  by  annual 
commemorat  ons,  prayers,  bonfires,  and  processions.  It  should 
be  added  that  those  classes  which  were  peculiarly  distinguished 
by  attachment  to  the  throne,  the  ^clergy  and  the  landed  gentry, 
had  peculiar  reasons  for  regarding  the  Church  of  Rome  with 
aversion.  The  clergy  trembled  iot  their  benefices  ;  the  landed 
gentry  for  their  abbeys  and  great  tithes.  While  the  memory  of 
the  reigii*  of  the  Saints  was  still  recent,  hatred  of  Popery  had 
in  some  degree  given  place  to  hatred  of  Puritanism  ;  but,  during 
the  eighteen  years  which  had  elapsed  since  the  Restoration,  the 
hatred  of  Puritanism  had  abated,  and  the  hatred  of  Popery  had 
Increased.  The  stipulations  of  the  treaty  of  Dover  were  accu- 
I'ately  known  to  very  few  ;  but  some  hints  had  got  abroad.  The 
general  impression  was  that  a  great  blow  was  about  to  be  aimed 
at  the  Protestant  religion.  The  King  was  suspected  by  many 
of  a  leaning  towards  Rome.  His  brother  and  heir  pi-esumptive 
was  known  to  be  a  bigoted  Roman  Catholic.  The  first  Duchess 
of  York  had  died  a  Roman  Catholic.  James  had  then,  in  de« 
fiance  of  the  remonstrances  of  the  House  of  Commons,  taken  to 
-wife  the  Princess  Mary  of  Modena,  another  Roman  Catholic. 
If  there  should  be  sons  by  this  marriage,  there  was  reason  to 


216  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

fear  that  they  might  be  bred  Roman  Catholics,  and  that  a  long 
succession  of  princes,  hostile  to  the  establislied  faith,  might  sit 
*  on  the  English  throne.  The  constitution  had  recently  been 
violated  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  the  Roman  Catholics  from 
the  penal  laws.  The  ally  by  whom  the  policy  of  England  had, 
during  many  years,  been  chiefly  governed,  was  not  only  a 
Roman  Catholic,  but  a  persecutor  of  the  reformed  Churches. 
Under  such  circumstances  it  is  not  strange  that  the  common 
people  should  have  been  inclined  to  apprehend  a  return  of  the 
times  of  her  whom  they  called  Bloody  Mary. 

Thus  the  nation  was  in  such  a  temper  tliat  the  smallest 
spark  might  raise  a  flame.  At  this  conjuncture  fire  was  set  in 
two  places  at  once  to  the  vast  mass  of  combustible  matter ;  and 
in  a  moment  the  whole  was  in  a  blaze. 

The  French  court,  which  knew  Danby  to  be  its  moptjtl 
enemy,  artfully  contrived  to  ruin  him  by  nijkiiig  him  pass  for 
its  friend.  Lewis,  by  the  instrumentality  of  Ralph  Montague, 
a  faithless  and  shameless  man  who  had  resided  in  France  as 
minister  from  England,  laid  before  the  House  of  Commons 
proofs  that  the  Treasurer  had  been  concerned  in  an  application 
made  by  the  Court  of  Whitehall*to  the  Court  of  Versailles  for 
a  sum  of  money.  This  discovery  produced  its  natural  effect. 
The  Treasurer  was,  in  truth,  exposed  to  the  vengeance  of  Par- 
liament, not  on  account  of  his  delinquencies,  but  on  account  of 
his  merits  ;  not  because  he  had  been  an  accomplice  in  a  crim- 
inal transaction,  but  because  he  had  been  a  most  unwilling  and 
unserviceable  accomplice.  But  of  the  circumstances,  which 
liave,  in  the  judgment  of  posterity,  greatly  extenuated  liis  fault, 
liis  contemporaries  were  ignorant.  In  their  view  he  was  the 
broker  who  had  sold  England  to  France.  It  seemed  clear  that 
his  greatness  was  at  an  end,  and  doubtful  whether  his  head 
could  be  saved. 

Yet  was  the  ferment  excited  by  this  discovery  slight,  when 
compared  with  the  commotion  which  arose  when  it  was  noised 
abroad  that  a  great  Popish  plot  had  been  detected.  One 
Titus  Gates,  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England,  had,  by 
his  disorderly  life  and  heterodox  doctrine,  drawn  on  himself  the 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  217 

censure  of  his  spiritual  superiors,  had  been  compelled  to  quit 
his  benefice,  and  had  ever  since  led  an  infamous  and  vagrant 
life.  He  had  once  professed  himself  a  Roman  Catholic,  and 
had  passed  some  time  on  the  Continent  in  English  colleges  of 
the  order  of  Jesus.  In  those  seminaries  he  had  heard  much 
wild  talk  about  the  best  means  of  bringing  England  back  to  the 
true  Church.  From  hints  thus  furnished  he  constructed  a  hid' 
eous  romance,  resembling  rather  the  dream  of  a  sick  man  than 
any  transaction  which  ever  took  place  in  the  real  world.  The 
Pope,  he  said,  had  entrusted  the  government  of  England  to  tho 
Jesuits.  Tlie  Jesuits  had,  by  commissions  under  the  seal  of 
their  society,  appointed  Roman  Catholic  clergyiften,  noblemen, 
and  gentlemen,  to  all  the  highest  offices  in  Church  and  State. 
The  Papists  had  burned  down  London  once.  They  had  tried 
to  burn  it  down  again.  They  were  at  that  moment  planning  a 
scheme  for  setting  fire  to  all  the  shipping  in  the  Thames.  They 
were  to  rise  at  a  signal  and  massacre  all  their  Protestant  neigh- 
bours. A  French  army  was  at  the  same  time  to  land  in  Ireland. 
All  the  leading  statesmen  and  divines  of  England  were  to  be 
murdered.  Three  or  four  schemes  had  been  formed  for  assas- 
sinating the  King.  He  was  to  be  stabbed.  He  was  to  be  poi- 
soned in  his  medicine.  He  was  to  be  shot  with  silver  bullets. 
The  public  mind  was  so  sore  and  excitable  that  these  lies  readily 
found  credit  with  the  vulgar  ;  and  two  events  which  speedily 
took  place  led  even  some  reflecting  men  to  suspect  that  the 
tale,  though  evidently  distorted  and  exaggerated,  might  have 
some  foundation. 

Edward  Coleman,  a  very  busy,  and  not  very  honest,  Roman 
Catholic  intriguer,  had  been  among  the  persons  accused. 
Search  was  made  for  his  papers.  It  was  found  that  he  had  just 
destroyed  the  greater  part  of  them.  But  a  few  which  had  es' 
caped  contained  some  passages  such  as,  to  minds  strongly  pre- 
possessed, might  seem  to  confirm  the  evidence  of  Gates.  Those 
passages  indeed,  when  candidly  construed,  appear  to  express 
little  more  than  the  hopes  which  the  posture  of  affairs,  the  pre- 
dilections of  Charles,  the  still  stronger  predilections  of  .lames, 
and    the  relations    existing  between  the   French   and   English 


218  HISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND. 

courts,  might  naturally  excite  iu  the  mind  of  a  Roman  Catholic 
strongly  attached  to  the  interests  of  his  Church.  But  tha  coun- 
try was  not  then  inclined  to  construe  the  letters  of  Papists  can- 
didly ;  and  it  was  urged,  with  some  show  of  reason,  that,  if 
papers  which  had  been  passed  over  as  unimportant  were  filled 
with  matter  so  suspicious,  some  great  mystery  of  iniquity  must 
have  been  contained  in  those  documents  which  had  been  care- 
fully committed  to  the  flames. 

A  few  days  later  it  was  known  that  Sir  Edmondsbury  God- 
frey, an  eminent  justice  of  the  peace  who  had  taken  the  deposi- 
tions of  Oates  against  Coleman,  had  disappeared.     Search  was 
made ;  and  Godfrey's  corpse  was  found  in  a  field  near  London. 
It  was  clear  that  he  had  died  by  violence.     It  was  equally  clear 
that  he  had  not  been  set  upon  by  robbers.     His  fate  is  to   this 
da}"^  a  secret.     Some  think  that  he  perished  by  his  own  hand  ; 
some,  that  he  was  slain  by  a  private  enemy.     The  most  improlv 
able  supposition  is   that  he  was  murdered  by  the   party  hostile 
to  the  court,  in  order  to  give  colour   to  the  story  of  the  plot. 
The  most  probable  supposition  seems,  on  the  whole,  to  be  that 
some  hotheaded  Roman  Catholic,  driven  to  frenzy  by  the  lies  of 
Oates  and  by  the  insults   of  the  mul.itude,  and  not  nicely  dis- 
tinguishing between  the  perjured  accuser  and  the  innocent  mag- 
istrate, had  taken  a  revenge  of  which  the  history  of  persecuted 
sects  furnishes  but  too  many  examples.     If  this  were  so,  the 
assassin  must  have  afterwards  bitterly  execrated  his  own  wick- 
edness and  folly.     The  capital  and  the  whole  nation  went  mad 
with   hatred  and  fear.     The   penal  laws,  which  had  begun   to 
lose  something  of  their  edge,  were   sharpened  anew.      Every- 
where  justices  were    busied    in   searching  houses    and  seizing 
papers.     All  the  gaols  were  filled  with  Papists.     London  had 
the  aspect  of  a  city  in  a  state   of  siege.     The   trainbands  were 
under  arms  all  night.      Preparations  were  made  for  barricading 
the  great  thoroughfares.      Patrols  marched  up  and  down  the 
streets.     Cannon  were   planted  round  Whitehall.     No  citizen 
thought  himself  safe  unless  he  carried  under  his  coat  a  small 
flail  loaded  with  lead  to  brain  the  Popish  assassins.     The  corpse 
of  the  murdered  magistrate  was  exhibited  during  several  days 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  219 

to  the  gaze  of  great  multitudes,  and  was  then  committed  to  the 
grave  with  strange  and  terrible  ceremonies,  which  indicated 
rather  fear  and  the  thirst  of  vengeance  tliau  sorrow  or  religious 
hope.  The  Houses  insisted  that  a  guard  should  be  placed  in 
the  vaults  over  which  they  sate,  in  order  to  secure  them  against 
a  second  Gunpowder  Plot.  All  their  proceedings  were  of  a 
piece  with  this  demand.  Ever  since  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  the 
oath  of  supremacy  had  been  exacted  from  members  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  Some  Roman  Catholics,  however,  had 
contrived  so  to  interpret  this  oath  that  they  could  take  it  without 
scruple.  A  more  stringent  test  was  now  added :  every  member 
of  Parliament  was  re({uired  to  make  the  Declaration  against 
Transubstantiation  ;  and  thus  the  Roman  Catholic  Lords  were 
for  the  first  time  excluded  from  their  seats.  Strong  resolutions 
were  adopted  against  the  Queen.  The  Commons  threw  one  of 
the  Secretaries  of  State  into  prison  for  having  countersigned 
commissions  directed  to  gentlemen  who  were  not  good  Protes- 
tants. They  impeached  the  Lord  Treasurer  of  high  treason. 
Nay,  they  so  far  forgot  the  doctrine  which,  while  the  memory 
of  the  civil  war  was  still  recent,  they  had  loudly  professed,  that 
they  even  attempted  to  wrest  the  command  of  the  militia  out  of 
the  King's  hands.  To  such  a  temper  had  eighteen  years  of 
misgovernment  brought  the  most  loyal  Parliament  that  had 
ever  met  in  England. 

Yet  it  may  seem  strange  that,  even  in  that  extremity,  the 
King  should  have  ventured  to  appeal  to  the  people ;  for  the 
people  were  more  excited  than  their  representatives.  The 
Lower  House,  discontented  as  it  was,  contained  a  larger  num- 
ber ot  Cavaliers  than  were  likely  to  find  seats  again.  But  it 
was  thought  that  a  dissoluti(m  would  put  a  stop  to  the  prosecu- 
tion of  the  Lord  Treasurer,  a  prosecution  which  might  probably 
bring  to  light  all  the  guilty  mysteries  of  the  French  alliance,  and 
might  thus  cause  extreme  personal  annoyance  and  embarrass- 
ment to  Charles.  Accordingly,  in  January,  1679,  the  Parliament, 
which  had  been  in  existence  ever  since  the  beffinnins:  of  the 
year  1661,  was  dissolved  j  and  Tvrits  were  jssijed  for  a  general 
election, 


220  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

During  some  weeks  the  contention  over  the  whole  country 
was  fierce  and  obstinate  beyond  example.  Unprecedented  sums 
were  expended.  New  tactics  were  employed.  It  was  remark- 
ed by  the  pamphleteers  of  tliat  time  as  something  extraordinary 
that  horses  were  hired  at  a  great  charge  for  the  conveyance  of 
electors.  The  practice  of  splitting  freeholds  for  the  purpose  of 
multiplying  votes  dates  from  this  memorable  straggle.  Dissent- 
ing preachers,  who  had  long  hidden  themselves  in  quiet  nooks 
from  persecution,  now  emerged  from  their  retreats,  and  rode 
from  village  to  village,  for  the  purpose  of  rekindling  the  zeal 
of  the  scattered  j^eojsle  of  God.  The  tide  ran  strong  against 
the  government.  Most  of  the  new  members  came  up  to  West- 
minster in  a  mood  little  differing  from  that  of  their  predeces- 
sors who  had  sent  Strafford  and  Laud  to  the  Tower. 

Meanwhile  the  courts  of  justice,  which  ought  to  be,  in  the 
midst  of  political  commotions,  sure  places  of  refuge  for  the 
innocent  of  every  party,  were  disgraced  by  wilder  passions  and 
fouler  corruptions  than  were  to  be  found  even  on  the  hustings. 
The  tale  of  Gates,  though  it  had  sufficed  to  convulse  the  whole 
realm,  would  not,  unless  confirmed  by  other  evidence,  suffice  to 
destroy  the  humblest  of  those  whom  he  had  accused.  F'or,  by 
the  old  law  of  Euijland,  two  witnesses  are  necessary  to  establish 
a  charge  of  treason.  But  the  success  of  the  first  impostor 
produced  its  natural  consequences.  In  a  few  w-eeks  he  had 
been  raised  from  penury  and  obscurity  to  opulence,  to  power 
which  made  him  tlie  dread  of  princes  and  nobles,  and  to  notoriety 
such  as  has  for  low  and  bad  minds  all  the  attractions  of  glory. 
He  was  not  long  without  coadjutors  and  rivals.  A  wretch- 
named  Carstairs,  who  had  earned  a  livelihood  in  Scotland  by 
going  disguised  to  conventicles  and  then  informing  against  the 
preachers,  led  the  way.  Bedloe,  a  noted  swindler,  followed; 
and  soon  from  all  the  brothels,  gambling  houses,  and  spunging 
houses  of  London,  false  witnesses  poured  forth  to  swear  away  the 
lives  of  Roman  Catholics.  Gne  came  with  a  story  about  an 
army  of  thirty  thousand  men  who  were  to  muster  in  the  disguise 
of  pilgrims  at  Corunna,  and  to  sail  thence  to  Wales.  Another 
had  been  promised  canonisation  and  five  hundred  pounds  to 


UNDEK    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  221 

murder  the   King.     A  third  had   stepped  into  an  eating  house 
in  Covent  Garden,  and  had  there  heard  a  great  Roman  Catholic 
banker  vow,  in  the   hearing  of  all  the  guests   and  drawers,  to 
kill  the  heretical  tyrant.     Gates,  that  he   might  not  be   eclipsed 
by  his  imitators,  soon  added  a  large    supplement  to  his   original 
narrative.     He  had  the  portentous  impudence  to  affirm,  among 
other  things,  that  he  had  once    stood  behind  a  door  which   was 
ajar,  and  had  there  overheard  the  Queen  declare  that  she  had  re- 
solved to  give  her  consent  to  the  assassination  of  her  husband.  The 
vuVar  believed,  and  the  liighest  magistrates  pretended  to  believe, 
even  such  fictions  as  these.     The  chief  judges  of  the  realm  were 
corrupt,  cruel,  and  timid.      The   leaders   of  the  Country   Party 
encouraged    the    prevailing   delusion.      The    most    respectable 
amonsr  them,  indeed,  were  themselves  so  far  deluded  as  to   be- 
lieve  the   greater   part  of  the   evidence  of  the  plot  to  be   true. 
Such  men  as  Shaftesbury  and  Buckingham  doubtless  perceived 
that   the   whole  was  a  romance.     But  it   was   a  romance   which 
served  their  turn  ;  and  to  their  seared  consciences  the  death  of 
an  innocent  man  gave  no  more  uneasiness  than  the  death  of  a 
parti'idge.     The  juries   partook  of   the  feelings   then   common 
throughout  the  nation,  and  were  encouraged  by  the  bench  to  in- 
dulge those  feelings  without  restraint.  The  multitude  applauded 
Gates  and  his  confederates,  hooted  and  pelted  the  Witnesses  who 
appeared  on  behalf  of  the  accused,  and  shouted  with  joy  when 
the  verdict  of   Guilty  was  pronounced.     It  was  in  vain  that  the 
sufferers  appealed  to  the  respectability  of   their  past   lives  :  for 
the  public  mind  was  possessed  with  a  belief  that  the  more   con- 
scientious a  Papist   was,  the  more   likely  he   must  be   to   plot 
against  a  Protestant  government.      It  was  in  vain  that,  just 
before   the   cart  passed  from   under  their  feet,  they  resolutely 
affirmed  their  innocence  :  for  the  general  opinion  was  that  a  good 
Papist  considered  all  lies  which  were  serviceable  to   his  Church 
as  not  only  excusable  but  meritorious. 

While  innocent  blood  was  shedding  under  the  forms  of  jus- 
tice, the  new  Parliament  met ;  and  such  was  the  violence  of  the 
predominant  party  that  even  men  whose  youth  had  been  passed 
amidst  revolutions,  men  who  remembered  the  attainder  of  Straf- 


222  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

ford,  the  attempt  on  the  five  members,  the  abolition  of  the 
House  of  Lords,  the  execution  of  the  King,  stood  aghast  at  the 
aspect  of  public  affairs.  The  impeachment  of  Danliy  was  re- 
sumed. He  pleaded  the  royal  pardon.  But  the  Commons 
treated  the  plea  with  contempt,  and  insisted  that  the  trial  should 
proceed.  Danby,  however,  was  not  their  chief  object.  They 
were  convinced  that  the  only  effectual  way  of  securing  the 
liberties  and  religion  of  the  nation  was  to  exclude  the  Duke  of 
York  from  the  throne. 

The  King  was  in  great  perplexity.  He  had  insisted  that 
his  brother,  the  sight  of  whom  inflamed  the  populace  to  mad- 
ness, should  retire  for  a  time  to  Brussels  :  but  this  concession 
did  not  seem  to  have  produced  any  favourable  effect.  The 
Roundhead  party  was  now  decidedly  preponderant.  Towards 
that  party  leaned  millioris  who  had,  at  the  time  of  the  Restora- 
tion, leaned  towards  the  side  of  prerogative.  Of  the  old  Cava- 
liers many  participated  in  the  prevailing  fear  of  Popery,  and 
many,  bitterly  resenting  the  ingratitude  of  the  prince  for  whom 
they  had  sacrificed  so  much,  looked  on  his  distress  as  carelessly 
as  he  had  looked  on  theirs.  Even  the  Anglican  clergy,  morti- 
fied and  alarmed  by  the  apostasy  of  the  Duke  of  York,  so  far 
countenanced  the  opposition  as  to  join  cortiially  in  the  outcry 
against  the  Roman  Catholics. 

The  King  in  this  extremity  had  recourse  to  Sir  William 
Temple.  Of  all  the  official  men  of  that  age  Temple  had  pre- 
served the  fairest  character.  The  Triple  Alliance  had  been  his 
work.  He  had  refused  to  take  any  part  in  the  politics  of  the 
Cabal,  and  had,  while  that  administration  directed  affaii's,  lived 
in  strict  privacy.  He  had  quitted  his  retreat  at  the  call  of 
Danby,  had  made  peace  between  England  and  Holland,  and 
had  borne  a  chief  part  in  bringing  about  the  marriage  of  the 
Lady  Mary  to  her  cousin  the  Prince  of  Orange.  Thus  he  had 
the  credit  of  every  one  of  the  few  good  things  which  had  been 
done  by  the  government  since  the  Restoration.  Of  the  numer- 
ous crimes  and  blunders  of  the  last  eighteen  years  none  could 
be  imputed  to  him.  His  private  life,  though  not  austere,  was 
figcproHs ;  his  manner?  were  popular ;  and  he  Yfm  o-ot  to  b© 


L'NDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  223 

corrupted  either  by  titles  or  by  money.  Something,  however, 
was  wanting  to  the  character  of  this  respectable  statesman.  The 
temperature  of  his  patriotism  was  lukewarm.  He  prized  his 
ease  and  his  personal  dignity  too  much,  and  shrank  from  re- 
sponsibility with  a  pusillanimous  fear.  Nor  indeed  had  his 
habits  fitted  him  to  bear  a  part  in  the  conflicts  of  our  domestic 
factions.  He  had  reached  his  fiftieth  year  without  having  sate 
in  the  English  Parliament ;  and  his  ofiicial  experience  had  been 
almost  entirely  acquired  at  foreign  courts.  He  was  justly 
esteemed  one  of  the  first  diplomatists  in  Europe:  but  the 
talents  and  accomplishments  of  a  diplomatist  are  widely  differ- 
ent from  those  which  qualify  a  politician  to  lead  the  House  of 
Commons  in  agitated  times. 

The  scheme  which  he  proposed  showed  considerable  ingenu- 
ity.     Though  not  a  profound  philosopher,  he  had  thought  more 
than  most  busy  men  of  the  world  on  the  general  principles   of 
government ;    and  his  mind   had  been  enlarged  by  historical 
studies  and  foreion  travel.     He   seems  to  have  discerned   more 
clearly  than   most  of  his  contemporaries  one  cause  of  the  diffi- 
culties by  which  the  government  was  beset.      The  character  of 
the  English  polity  was  gradually  changing.     The  Parliament 
was  slowly,  but  constantly,  gaining  ground  on  the  prerogative 
The  line  between  the  legislative  and  executive  powers  was  in 
theory  as  strongly  marked  as  ever,  but  in  practice  was  daily  be- 
coming fainter  and  fainter.     The  theory  of  the  constitution  was 
that  the  King  might  name  his  own  ministers.      But  the  House 
of  Commons  had  driven  Clarendon,  the  Cabal,  and  Danby  suc- 
cessively from  the  direction  of  affair?.     The  theory  of  the  con- 
stitution was   that  the  King  alone  had  the  power  of  making 
peace  and  war.     But  the  House  of  Commons  had  forced  him  to 
make  peace  with  Holland,  and  had  all  but  forced  him  to  make 
war  with  France.     The  theory  of  the  constitution  was  that  the 
King  was   the   sole  judge    of  the   cases  in  which   it   might  be 
proper  to  pardon  offenders.     Yet  he  was  so  much  in  dread  of 
the  House  of  Commons  that,  at  that  moment,  he  could  not  ven- 
ture to  rescue  from  the  gallows  men  whom  he  well  knew  to  be 
the  innocent  victims  of  perjury. 


224  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Temple,  it  should  seem,  was  desirous  to  secure  to  the  legis* 
lature  its  undoubted  coustitutional  powers,  and  yet  to  prevent 
it,  if  possible,  from  encroaching  further  on  the  province  of  the 
executive  administration.  With  this  view  he  determined  to  in- 
terpose between  the  sovereign  and  the  Parliament  a  body  which 
might  break  the  shock  of  their  collision.  There  was  a  body, 
ancient,  highly  honourable,  and  recognised  by  the  law,  which, 
he  thought,  might  be  so  remodelled  as  to  serve  this  purpose. 
He  determined  to  give  to  the  Privy  Council  a  new  character 
and  office  in  the  government.  The  number  of  Councillors  he 
fixed  at  thirty.  Fifteen  of  them  were  to  be  the  cliief  ministers 
of  state,  of  law,  and  of  religion.  The  other  fifteen  were  to  be 
unplaced  noblemen  and  gentlemen  of  ample  fortune  and  high 
character.  There  was  to  be  no  interior  cabinet.  All  the  thirty 
were  to  be  entrusted  with  every  political  secret,  and  summoned 
to  every  meeting ;  and  the  King  was  to  declare  that  he  would, 
on  every  occasion,  be  guided  by  their  advice. 

Temple  seems  to  have  thought  that,  by  this  contrivance,  he 
could  at  once  secure  the  nation  against  the  tyranny  of  the 
Crown,  and  the  Crown  against  the  encroachments  of  the  Par- 
liament. It  was,  on  one  hand,  highly  impi-obable  that  schemes 
such  as  had  been  formed  by  the  Cabal  would  be  even  propounded 
for  discussion  in  an  assembly  consisting  of  thirty  eminent  men, 
fifteen  of  whom  were  bound  by  no  tie  of  interest  to  the  court. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  might  be  hoped  that  the  Commons,  con- 
tent with  the  guarantee  against  misgovernment  which  such  a 
Privy  Council  furnished, ^would  confine  themselves  more  than 
they  had  of  late  done  to  their  strictly  legislative  functions,  and 
would  no  longer  think  it  necessary  to  pry  into  every  part  of  the 
executive  administration. 

This  plan,  though  in  some  respects  not  unworthy  of  the 
abilities  of  its  author,  was  in  principle  vicious.  The  new  board 
was  half  a  cabinet  and  haM  a  Parliament,  and,  like  almost  every 
other  contrivance,  whether  mechanical  or  political,  which  is 
meant  to  serve  two  purposes  altogether  different,  failed  of  ac- 
complishing either.  It  was  too  large  and  too  divided  to  be  a 
gooi  administrative  body.     It  was   too  closely  connected  with 


UNDER    CHARLES     rilE    SECOND.  225 

the  Crown  to  be  a  good  checking  botly.  It  contained  just 
enough  of  popular  ingredients  to  make  it  a  bad  council  of  state, 
unfit  for  the  keeping  of  secrets,  for  the  conducting  of  delicate 
negotiations,  and  for  the  administration  of  war.  Yet  were  these 
popular  ingredients  by  no  means  sufficient  to  secure  the  nation 
against  misgovernment.  The  plan,  therefore,  even  if  it  had 
been  fairly  tried,  could  scarcely  have  succeeded  ;  and  it  was  not 
fairly  tried.  The  King  was  fickle  and  perfidious :  the  Parlia- 
ment was  excited  and  unreasonable  ;  and  the  materials  out  of 
which  the  new  Council  was  made,  though  perhaps  the  best 
which  that  age  afforded,  were  still  bad. 

The  commencement  of  the  new  system  was,  however,  hailed 
with  general  delight ;  for  the  peojjle  were  in  a  temper  to  think 
any  change  an  improvement.  They  were  also  pleased  by  some 
of  the  new  nominations.  Shaftesbury,  now  their  favourite,  was 
appointed  Lord  President.  Russell  and  some  other  distinguished 
members  of  the  Country  Party  were  sworn  of  the  Council.  But 
a  few  days  later  all  was  again  in  confusion.  The  inconveniences 
of  having  so  numerous  a  cabinet  were  such  that  Temple  him.self 
consented  to  infringe  one  of  the  fundamental  rules  which  he  had 
laid  down,  and  to  become  one  of  a  small  knot  which  really 
directed  everything.  With  him  were  joined  three  other  minis- 
ters, Arthur  Capel,  p]arl  of  Essex,  George  Savile,  Viscount 
Halifax,  and  Robert  Spencer,  Earl  of  Sunderland. 

Of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  then  First  Commissioner  of  the 
Treasury,  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  he  was  a  man  of  solid, 
though  not  brilliant  parts,  and  of  grave  and  melancholy  charac- 
ter, that  he  had  been  connected  with  the  Country  Party,  and 
that  he  was  at  this  time  honestly  desirous  to  effect,  on  terras 
beneficial  to  the  state,  a  reconciliation  between  that  party  and 
the  throne. 

Among  the  statesmen  of  those  times  Halifax  was,  in  genius, 
the  first.  His  intellect  was  fertile,  subtle,  and  capacious.  His 
polished,  luminous,  and  animated  eloquence,  set  off  by  the  silver 
tones  of  his  voice,  was  the  delight  of  the  HousGi  of  Lords.  His 
conversation  overflowed  with  thought,  fancy,  and  wit.  His 
political  tracts  well  deserve  to  be   studied  for   their  literary 

15 


226  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

merit,  and  fully  entitle  him  to  a  place  among  English  cla>  >sica. 
To  the  weight  derived  from  talents  so  great  and  varices  he 
united  all  the  influence  which  belongs  to  rank  and  ample  ;»osses- 
sions.  Yet  he  was  less  successful  in  politics  than  majy  who 
enjoyed  smaller  advantages.  Indeed,  those  intellectual  pecu- 
liarities which  make  his  writings  valuable  frequently  impeded 
him  in  the  contests  of  active  life.  For  he  always  saw, passing 
events,  not  in  the  point  of  view  in  which  they  commonly  appear 
to  one  who  bears  a  part  in  them,  but  in  thepoint  of  view  in 
which,  after  the  lapse  of  many  years,  they  appear  to  the  phil- 
osophic historian.  With  such  a  turn  of  mind,  he  could  not  long 
continue  to  act  cordially  with  any  body  of  men.  All  the  pre- 
judices,'  all  the  exaggerations,  of  both  the  great  parties  in  the 
state  moved  his  scorn.  He  despised  the  mean  arts  and  unrea- 
sonable clamours  of  demagogues.  He  despised  still  more  the 
doctrines  of  divine  right  and  passive  obedience.  He  sneered 
impartially  at  the  bigotry  of  the  Churchman  and  at  the  bigotry 
of  the  Puritan.  He  was  equally  unable  to  comprehend  how 
any  man  should  object  to  Saints'  days  and  surplices,  and  how 
any  man  should  persecute  any  other  man  for  objecting  to  them. 
In  temper  he  was  what,  in  our  time,  is  called  a  Conservative, 
in  theory  he  was  a  Republican.  Even  wlien  his  dread  of 
anarchy  and  his  disdain  for  vulgar  delu  ions  led  him  to  side  for 
a  time  with  the  defenders  of  arbitrary  power,  his  intellect  was 
always  with  Locke  and  Milton.  Indeed,  his  jests  upon  heredi- 
tary monarchy  were  sometimes  such  as  would  have  better 
become  a  member  of  the  Calf's  Head  Club  than  a  Privy  Coun- 
cillor of  the  Stuarts.  In  reli<xiou  he  was  so  far  from  beinsr  a 
zealot  that  he  was  called  by  the  uncharitable  an  atheist :  but 
this  imputation  he  vehemently  repelled  ;  and  iu  truth,  though 
he  sometimes  gave  scandal  by  the  way  in  which  he  exerted  his 
rare  powers  both  of  reasoning  and  of  ridicule  on  serious  sub- 
jects, he  seems  to  have  been  by  no  means  unsusceptible  of 
relisifious  imoressions. 


o 


He  was  the  chief  of  those  politicians  whom  the  two  great 
parties  contemptuously  called  Trimmers.  Instead  of  quarrel- 
ling with  this  nickname,  he  assumed  it  as  a  title  of  honour,  and 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND  227 

vindicated,  witli  great  vivacity,  the  dignity  of  the  appelhition. 
Everything  good,  he  said,  trims  between  extremes.  The  tem- 
perate zone  trims  between  the  climate  in  which  men  are  roasted 
and  the  climate  in  which  they  are  frozen.  The  English  Church 
trims  between  the  Anabaptist  madness  and  the  Papist  lethargy. 
The  English  constitution  trims  between  Turkish  despotism  and 
Polish  anarchy.  Virtue  is  nothing  but  a  just  temper  between 
propensities  any  one  of  which,  if  indulged  to  excess,  becomes 
vice.  Nay,  the  perfection  of  the  Supreme  Being  himself  con- 
sists in  the  exact  equilibrium  of  attributes,  none  of  which  could 
preponderate  without  disturbing  the  whole  moral  and  physical 
order  of  the  workL*  Thus  Halifax  was  a  Trimmer  on  principle. 
He  was  also  a  Trimmer  by  the  constitution  both  of  his  head 
and  of  his  heart.  His  understanding  was  keen,  sceptical,  inex- 
haustibly fertile  in  distinctions  and  objections  ;  his  taste  refined, 
his  sense  of  the  ludicrous  exquisite ;  his  temper  placid  and  for- 
giving, but  fastidious,  and  by  no  means  prone  either  to  malev- 
olence or  to  enthusiastic  admiration.  Such  a  man  could  not 
long  be  constant  to  any  band  of  political  allies.  He  must  not, 
however,  be  confounded  with  the  vulgar  crowd  of  renegades, 
For  though,  likg  them,  he  passed  from  side  to  side,  his  transition 
was  always  in  the  direction  opposite  to  theirs.  He  had  nothing 
in  common  with  those  who  fly  from  extreme  to  extreme,  and 
who  regard  the  party  which  they  have  deserted  with  an  ani- 
mosity far  exceeding  that  of  consistent  enemies.  His  place  was 
on  the  debatable  ground  between  tlie  hostile  divisions  of  the 
community,  and  he  never  wandered  far  beyond  the  front'er  of 
either.  The  party  to  which  he  at'  any  moment  belonged  was 
the  party  wliich,  at  that  moment,  he  liked  least,  because  it  was 
the  party  of  which  at  that  moment  he  had  the  nearest  view- 
He  was  therefore  always  severe  upon  his  violent  associates,  and 
was  always  in  friendly  relations  with  his  moderate  opponents. 
Every  faction  in  the  day  Of  its  insoient  and  vindictive  triumph 
incurred  his  censure  ;  and  every  faction,  when  vanquished  and 
persecuted,  found  in  him  a  protector.     To  his  lasting  honour  it 

*  Halifax  was  undoubtedly  the  real  author  of  the  Character  of  a  Trimmer, 
which,  for  a  time,  went  under  the  name  of  Jiis  kinsman.  Sir  William  Coventry. 


228  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

must  be  mentioned  that  he  attempted  to  save  those  victims 
whose  fate  has  left  the  deepest  stain  both  on  the  Whig  and  on 
the  Tory  name. 

He  had  greatly  distinguished  himself  in  opposition,  and  had 
thus  drawn  on  himself  the  royal  displeasure,  which  was  indeed 
so  strong  that  he  was  not  admitted  into  the  Council  of  Thirty 
without  much  difficulty  and  long  altercation.  As  soon,  however, 
as  he  had  obtained  a  footing  at  court,  the  charms  of  his  manner 
and  of  his  conversation  made  him  a  favourite.  He  was  seriously 
alarmed  by  the  violence  of  the  public  discontent.  He  thought 
that  liberty  was  for  the  present  safe,  and  that  order  and  legiti- 
mate authority  were  in  danger.  He  therefore,  as  was  his  fashion, 
joined  himself  to  the  weaker  side.  Perhaps  his  conversion  was 
not  wholly  disinterested.  For  study  and  reflection,  though  they 
had  emancipated  him  from  many  vulgar  prejudices,  had  left  him 
a  slave  to  vulgar  desires.  Money  he  did  not  want ;  and  there 
is  no  evidence  that  he  ever  obtained  it  by  any  means  which,  in 
that  age,  even  severe  censors  considered  as  dishonourable  ;  but 
rank  and  power  had  strong  attractions  for  him.  He  pretended, 
indeed,  that  he  considered  titles  and  great  offices  as  baits  which 
could  allure  none  but  fools,  that  he  hated  business,  pomp,  and 
pageantry,  and  tliat  his  dearest  Avish  was  to  escape  from  the 
bustle  and  glitter  of  Whitehall  to  the  quiet  woods  which  sur- 
rounded his  ancient  mansion  in  Nottinghamshire  ;  but  his  con- 
duct was  not  a  little  at  variance  with  his  professions.  In  truth 
he  wished  to  command  the  respect  at  once  of  courtiers  and  of 
philosophers,  to  be  admired  for  attaining  high  dignities,  and  to 
be  at  the  same  time  admired  for  despising  them. 

Sunderland  was  Secretary  of  State.  In  this  man  the  polit- 
ical immorality  of  his  age  was  personified  in  the  most  lively 
manner.  Nature  had  given  him  a  keen  understanding,  a  rest' 
less  and  mischievous  temper,  a  cold  heart,  and  an  abject  spirit. 
His  mind  had  undergone  a  training  by  which  all  his  vices  had 
been  nursed  up  to  the  rankest  maturity.  At  his  entrance  into 
public  life,  he  had  j^assed  several  years  in  diplomatic  posts  abroad, 
and  had  been,  during  some  time,  minister  in  France.  Every 
calling  has  its  peculiar  temptations.     There  is  no   injustice  in 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  229 

saying  that  diplomatists,  as  a  class,  have  always  been  more  dis- 
tinguished by  their  address,  by  the  art  with  which  they  win  the 
confidence  of  those  with  whom  they  have  to  deal,  and  by  the 
ease  with  which  they  catch  the  tone  of  every  societ}^  into  which 
they  are  admitted,  than  by  generous  enthusiasm  or  austere  recti- 
tude ;  and  the  relations  between  Charles  and  Lewis  were  such 
that  no  English  nobleman  could  long  reside  in  France  as  envoy, 
and  retain  any  patriotic  or  honourable  sentiment.  Sunderland 
came  forth  from  the  bad  school  in  which  he  had  been  brought 
up,  cunning,  supple,  shameless,  free  from  all  prejudices,  and 
destitute  of  all  principles.  He  was,  by  hereditary  connection,  a 
Cavalier  :  but  with  the  Cavaliers  he  had  nothing  in  common. 
They  were  zealous  for  monarchy,  and  condemned  in  theory  all 
resistance.  Yet  they  had  sturdy  P^nglish  hearts  which  would 
never  have  endured  veal  despotism.  He,  on  the  contrary,  had 
a  languid  speculative  liking  for  republican  institutions  which 
was  compatible  with  perfect  readiness  to  be  in  practice  the  most 
servile  instrument  of  arbitrary  power.  Like  many  other  accom- 
plished flatterers  and  negotiators,  he  was  far  more  skilful  in  the 
art  of  reading  the  characters  and  practising  on  the  weaknesses 
of  individuals,  than  in  the  art  of  discerning  the  feelings  of  great 
masses,  and  of  foreseeing  the  approach  of  great  revolutions. 
He  was  adroit  in  intrigue  ;  and  it  was  difficult  even  for  shrewd 
and  experienced  men  who  had  been  amply  forewarned  of  his 
perfidy  to  withstand  the  fascination  of  his  manner,  and  to  refuse 
credit  to  his  professions  of  attachment.  But  he  was  so  intent 
on  observing  and  courting  particular  persons,  that  he  often 
forgot  to  study  the  temper  of  the  nation.  He  therefore  miscal- 
culated grossly  with  respect  to  some  of  the  most  momentous 
events  of  his  time.  More  than  one  important  movement  and 
rebound  of  the  public  mind  took  him  by  surprise  ;  and  the  world, 
unable  to  understand  how  so  clever  a  man  could  beTjIindto 
what  was  clearly  discerned  by  the  politicians  of  the  coffee  houses, 
sometimes  attributed  to  deep  design  what  were  in  truth  mere 
blunders. 

It  was  only  in  private   conference  that  his  eminent  abilities 
displayed  themselves.     In  the  royal  closet,  or  in  a  very  small 


230  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

circle,  he  exercised  great  influence.  But  at  the  Council  board 
he  was  taciturn  ;  and  in  the  House  of  Lords  he  never  opened 
his  lips. 

,  The  four> confidential  advisers  of  the  crown  soon  found  that 
their  position  was  embarrassing  and  invidious.  The  other 
members  of  the  Council  murmured  at  a  distinction  inconsistent 
with  the  King's  promises  ;  and  some  of  them,  with  Shaftesbury 
at  their  head,  again  betook  themselves  to  strenuous  opposition 
in  Parliament.  The  agitation,  which  had  been  suspended  by 
the  late  changes,  speedily  became  more  violent  than  ever.  It 
was  in  vain  that  Charles  offered  to  grant  to  the  Commons  any 
security  for  the  Protestant  religion  which  they  could  devise, 
provided  only  that  they  would  not  touch  the  order  of  succession. 
They  would  hear  of  no  compromise.  They  would  have  the 
Exclusion  Bill,  and  nothing  but  the  Exckision  Bill.  The  King, 
therefore,  a  few  weeks  after  he  had  publicly  promised  to  take 
no  step  without  the  advice  of  his  new  Council,  went  down  to 
the  House  of  Lords  without  mentioning  Ids  intention  in  Coun- 
cil, and  prorogued  the  Parliament. 

The  day  of  that  prorogation,  the  twenty-sixth  of  May,  1 679, 
is  a  great  era  in  our  history.  For  on  that  day  the  Habeas 
Corpus  Act  received  the  royal  assent.  From  the  time  of  tlie 
Great  Charter  the  substantive  law  respecting  the  personal  lib- 
-^rty  of  Englishmen  had  been  nearly  the  same  as  at  present: 
but  it  had  been  inefficacious  for  want  of  a  stringent  system  of 
procedure.  What  was  needed  was  not  a  new  right,  but  a 
prompt  and  searching  remedy ;  and  such  a  remedy  the  Habeas 
Corpus  Act  supplied.  The  King  would  gladly  have  refused  his 
consent  to  that  measure :  but  he  was  about  to  appeal  from  his 
Parliament  to  his  people  on  the  question  of  the  succession,  and 
he  could  not  venture,  at  so  critical  a  moment,  to  reject  a  bill 
whicli  was  in  the  highest  degree  popular. 

On  the  same  day  the  press  of  England  became  for  a  short 
time  free.  In  old  times  jirinters  had  been  strictly  controlled 
by  the  Court  of  Star  Chamber.  The  Long  Parliament  had 
abolished  the  Star  Chamber,  but  had,  in  spite  of  the  philo- 
sophical and  eloquent  expostulation  of  Milton,  established  and 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  231 

maintained  a  censorship.  Soon  after  the  Restoration,  an  Act 
had  been  passed  which  prohibited  the  printing  of  nnlicensed 
books  ;  and  it  had  been  provided  that  tliis  Act  should  continue 
in  force  till  the  end  of  the  first  session  of  the  next  Parliament. 
That  moment  had  now  arrived  ;  and  the  King,  in  the  very  act 
of  dismissing  the  House,  emancipated  the  Press. 

Shortly  after  the  prorogation  came  a  dissolution  and  another 
general  election.  The  zeal  and  strengtli  of  the  opposition  were 
at  the  height.  The  cry  for  the  Exclusion  Bill  was  louder  than 
ever;  and  with  this  cry  was  mingled  another  cry,  which  fired 
the  blood  of  the  multitude,  but  wliich  was  heard  with  regret 
and  alarm  by  all  judicious  friends  of  freedom.  Not  oidy  the 
rights  of  the  Duke  of  York,  an  ^avowed  Papist,  but  those  of 
his  two  daughters,  sincere  and  zealous  Protestants,  were  assailed. 
It  was  confidently  affirmed  that  the  eldest  natural  son  of  the 
King  had  been  born  in  wedlock,  and  was  lawful  heir  to  the 
crown. 

Charles,  while  a  wanderer  on  the  Continent,  had  fallen  in  at 
the  Hague  with  Lucy  Walters,  a  Welsh  girl  of  great  beauty, 
but  of  weak  understanding  and  dissolute  manners.  She  be- 
came his  mistress,  and  presented  him  with  a  son.  A  suspicious 
lover  might  have  had  his  doubts  ;  for  the  lady  had  several  ad- 
mirers, and  was  not  supposed  to  be  cruel  to  any.  Charles,  how- 
ever, readily  took  her  word,  and  poured  forth  on  little  James 
Crofts,  as  the  boy  was  then  called,  an  overflowing  fondness, 
such  as  seemed  hardly  to  belong  to  that  cool  and  careless  nature. 
Soon  after  the  restoration,  the  young  favourite,  who  had  learned 
in  France  the  exercises  then  considered  necessary  to  a  fine 
gentleman,  made  his  appearance  at  Whitehall.  He  was  lodged 
in  the  palace,  attended  by  pages,  and  permitted  to  enjoy  sevei'al 
distinctions  which  had  till  then  been  confined  to  princes  of  the 
blood  royal.  He  was  married,  while  still  in  tender  youth,  to 
Anne  Scott,  heiress  of  the  noble  house  of  Buccleuch.  He  took 
her  name,  and  received  with  her  hand  possession  of  her  ample 
domains.  The  estate  which  he  had  acquired  by  this  match  was 
popularly  estimated  at  not  less  than  ten  thousand  pounds  a 
year.     Titles,  and  favours  more  substantial   than  titles,  were 


232  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

lavished  on  him.  He  was  made  Duke  of  Monmouth  in  Eng- 
land, Duke  of  Buccleuch  in  Scotland,  a  Knight  of  the  Garter, 
Master  of  the  Horse,  Commander  of  the  first  troop  of  Life 
Guards,  Chief  Justice  of  Eyre  south  of  Trent,  and  Chancellor 
of  the  University  of  Cambridge.  Nor  did  he  appear  to  the 
public  unworthy  of  his  high  fortunes.  His  countenance  was 
eminently  handsome  and  engaging,  his  temper  sweet,  his  man- 
ners polite  and  affable.  Though  a  libertine,  he  won  the  hearts 
of  the  Puritans.  Though  he  was  known  to  have  been  privy  to 
the  shameful  attack  o-n  Sir  John  Coventry,  he  easily  obtained 
the  forgiveness  of  the  Country  Party.  Even  austere  moral- 
ists owned  that,  in  such  a  court,  strict  conjugal  fidelity  was 
scarcely  to  be  expected  from  one  who,  while  a  child,  had  been 
married  to  another  child.  Even  patriots  were  willing  to  excuse 
a  headstrong  boy  for  visiting  with  immoderate  vengeance  an  in- 
sult offered  to  his  father.  And  soon  the  stain  left  by  loose 
amours  and  midnight  brawls  was  effaced  by  honourable  ex- 
ploits. When  Chnrlcs  and  Lewis  united  their  forces  against 
Holland,  Monmouth  commanded  the  English  auxiliaries  who 
were  sent  to  the  Continent,  and  approved  himself  a  gallant 
soldier  and  a  not  unintelligent  officer.  On  his  return  he  found 
himself  the  most  ])opular  man  in  the  kingdom.  Nothing  was 
withheld  from  him  but  the  crown  ;  nor  did  even  tlie  crown 
seem  to  be  absolutely  beyond  his  reach.  Tiie  distinction  which 
had  most  injudiciously  been  made  between  him  and  the  highest 
nobles  had  produced  evil  conse(}uences.  When  a  boy  he  had 
been  invited  to  put  on  his  hat  in  the  presence  chamber,  while 
Howards  and  Seymours  stood  uncovered  round  him.  When 
foreign  princes  died,  he  had  mourned  for  them  in  the  long  pur- 
ple cloak,  which  no  other  subject,  except  the  Duke  of  York 
and  Prince  liupert,  was  permitted  to  wear.  It  was  natural  that 
these  things  should  lead  him  to  regai'd  himself  as  a  legitimate 
prince  of  the  House  of  Stuart.  Charles,  even  at  a  ripe  age,  was 
devoted  to  his  pleasures  and  regardless  of  his  dignity.  It  could 
hardly  be  thought  incredible  that  he  should  at  twenty  have 
secretly  gone  through  the  form  of  espousing  a  lady  whose 
beauty  had  fascinated  him.    While  Monmouth  was  still  a  child. 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  233 

and  while  the  Duke  of  York  still  passed  for  a  Protestant,  it  was 
rumoured  throughout  the  country,  and  even  in  circles  which 
ought  to  have  been  well  informed,  that  the  King  had  made 
Lucy  Walters  his  wife,  and  that,  if  every  one  had  his  right,  her 
son  would  be  Prince  of  Wales.  Much  was  said  of  a  certain 
black  box  which,  according  to  the  vulgar  belief,  contained  the 
contract  of  marriage.  When  JVIonmouth  had  returned  from  the 
Low  Countries  with  a  high  character  for  valour  and  conduct, 
and  when  the  Duke  of  York  was  known  to  be  a  member  of  a 
church  detested  by  the  great  majority  of  the  nation,  this  idle 
story  became  important.  For  it  there  was  not  the  sli<rhtest 
evidence.  Against  it  there  was  the  solemn  asseveration  of  the 
King,  made  before  his  Council,  and  by  his  order  communicated 
to  his  people.  But  the  multitude,  always  foiid  of  romantic  ad- 
ventures, drank  in  eagerly  the  tale  of  the  secret  espousals  and 
the  black  box.  Some  chiefs  of  the  opposition  acted  on  this 
occasion  as  they  acted  with  respect  to  the  more  odious  fables 
of  Gates,  and  countenanced  a  story  which  they  must  have 
despised. 

The  interest  which  the  populace  took  in  him  whom  they  re- 
gardtd  as  the  chapa[)ion  of  the  true  religion,  and  the  rightful  heir 
of  the  British  throne,  was  kept  up  by  every  artifice.  When  Mon- 
mouth arrived  in  London  at  midnight,  the  watchmen  were  or- 
dered by  the  magistrates  to  'proclaim  the  joyful  event  throuo-h 
the  streets  of  the  City  :  the  people  left  their  beds  :  bonfires  were 
lighted :  the  windows  were  illuminated :  the  churches  were 
opened ;  and  a  merry  peal  rose  from  all  the  steeples.  When 
he  travelled,  he  was  everywhere  received  with  not  less  pomp, 
and  with  far  more  enthusiasm,  than  had  been  displayed  when 
Kings  had  made  progresses  through  the  realm.  He  was  es- 
corted from  mansion  to  mansion  by  long  cavalcades  of  armed  gen 
tlemen  and  yeomen.  Cities  poured  forth  their  whole  popular 
tion  to  receive  him.  Electors  thronged  round  him,  to  assure  him 
that  their  votes  were  at  his  disposal.  T(>  such  a  height  were  his 
pretensions  carried,  that  he  not  only  exhibited  on  his  escutcheon 
the  lions  of  England  and  the  lilies  of  France  without  the  baton 
sinister  under  which,  according  to  the  law  of  heraldrj,  they  should 


234  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

have  been  debruised  in  token  of  his  illegitimate  birth,  but  ven- 
tured to  touch  for  the  king's  evil.  At  the  same  time  he  neglected 
no  art  of  condescension  by  which  the  love  of  the  multitude  could 
be  conciliated.  He  stood  godfather  to  the  children  of  the  peas- 
antry, mingled  in  every  rustic  sport,  vprestled,  played  at  quarter- 
stafp,  and  won  footraces  in  his  boots  against  fleet  runners  in  shoes. 

It  is  a  curious  circumstance  that,  at  two  of  the  greatest  con- 
junctures in  our  history,  the  chiefs  of  the  Protestant  party  should 
have  committed  the  same  error,  and  should  by  that  error  have 
greatly  endangered  their  country  and  their  religion.  At  the 
death  of  Edward  the  Sixth  they  set  up  the  Lady  Jane,  without 
any  show  of  birthright,  in  opposition,  not  only  to  their  eneniy 
Mary,  but  also  to  Elizabeth,  the  true  hope  of  England  and  of 
the  Reformation.  Thus  the  most  respectable  Protestants,  with 
Elizabeth  at  their  head,  were  forced  to  make  common  cause 
with  the  Papists.  In  the  same  manner,  a  hiuidred  and  thirty 
years  later,  a  part  of  the  opposition,  by  setting  up  Monmouth 
as  a  claimant  of  the  crown,  attacked  the  rights,  not  only  of 
James,  whom  they  justly  regarded  as  an  implacable  foe  of  their 
faith  and  their  liberties,  but  also  of  the  Prince  and  Princess  of 
Orange,  who  were  eminently  marked  out,  both  by  situation  and 
by  personal  qualities,  as  the  defenders  of  all  free  governments 
and  of  all  reformed  churches. 

The  folly  of  this  course  speedily  became  manifest.  At  pres- 
ent the  popularity  of  Monmouth  constituted  a  great  part  of  the 
strength  of  the  opposition.  The  elections  went  against  the 
court :  the  day  fixed  for  the  meeting  of  the  Houses  drew  near  ; 
and  it  was  necessary  that  the  King  should  determine  on  some 
line  of  conduct.  Those  who  advised  him  discerned  the  first 
faint  signs  of  a  change  of  public  feeling,  and  hoped  that,  by 
merely  postponing  the  conflict,  he  would  be  able  to  secure  the 
victory.  He  therefore,  without  even  asking  the  opinion  of  the 
Council  of  the  Thirty,  resolved  to  prorogue  the  new  Parliament 
before  it  entered  on  business.  At  the  same  time  the  Duke  of 
York,  who  had  returned  from  Brussels,  was  ordered  to  retire  to 
Scotland,  and  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  administration  of 
that  kingdom. 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  235 

Temple's  phm  of  government  was  now  avowedly  abandoned 
and  very  soon  forgotten.  The  Privy  Council  again  became 
wiiat  it  had  been.  Shaftesbury,  and  those  who  were  connected 
with  him  in  politics  resigned  their  seats.  Temple  himself,  as 
was  his  wont  in  unquiet  times,  retired  to  his  garden  and  his 
library.  Essex  quitted  the  boafd  of  Treasury,  and  cast  in  his 
lot  with  the  opposition.  But  Halifax,  disgusted  and  alarmed 
by  the  violence  of  his  old  associates,  and  Sunderland,  who  never 
quitted  place  while  he  could  hold  it,  remained  in  the  King's 
service. 

In  consequence  of  the  resignations  which  took  place  at  this 
conjuncture,  the  way  to  greatness  was  left  clear  to  a  new  set 
oi  aspirants.  Two  statesmen,  who  subsequently  rose  to  the 
Ihighest  eminence  which  a  British  subject  can  reach,  soon  began 
to  attract  a  large  share  of  the  public  attention.  These  were 
Xawrence  Hyde  and  Sidney  Godolpbin. 

Lawrence  Hyde  was  the  second  son  of  the  Chancellor  Clai'- 
endon,  and  was  brother  of  the  first  Duchess  of  York.  He  had 
excellent  parts,  which  had  been  improved  by  parliamentary  and 
diplomatic  exi^erience  ;  but  the  infirmities  of  his  temper  detracted 
much  from  the  effective  strength  of  his  abilities.  Negotiator 
and  courtier  as  he  was,  he  never  learned  the  art  of  governing  or 
of  concealing  his  emotions.  When  prosperous,  he  was  insolent 
and  boastful :  when  he  sustained  a  check,  his  undisguised  mortifi- 
cation doubled  the  triumph  of  his  enemies  :  very  slight  provo- 
cations sufficed  to  kindle  his  anger ;  and  when  he  was  angry 
he  said  bitter  things  which  he  forgot  as  soon  as  he  was  pacified, 
but  which  others  remembered  many  years.  His  quickness  and 
penetration  would  have  made  him  a  consummate  man  of  busi- 
ness but  for  his  selfsufficiency  and  impatience.  His  writings 
proved  that  he  had  many  of  the  qualities  of  an  orator:  but  his 
irritability  prevented  him  from  doing  himself  justice  in  debate; 
for  nothing  was  easier  than  to  goad  him  into  a  passion  ;  and, 
from  the  moment  when  he  went  into  a  passion,  he  was  at  the 
mercy  of  opponents  far  inferior  to  him  in  capacity. 

Unlike  most  of  the  leading  politicians  of  that  generation  he 
was  a  consistent,  dogged,  and  rancorous  party  man,  a  Cavalier 


236  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

of  the  old  school,  a  zealous  champion  of  the  Crown  and  of  the 
Church,  and  a  hater  of  Republicans  and  Nonconformists.  He 
had  consequently  a  great  body  of  personal  adherents.  The 
clergy  especially  looked  on  him  as  their  own  man,  and  extended 
to  his  foibles  an  indulgence  of  which,  to  say  the  truth,  he  stood 
in  some  need :  for  he  drank  deep  ;  and  when  h6  was  in  a  rage, — 
and  he  very  often  was  in  a  rage, — he  swore  like  a  porter. 

He  now  succeeded  Essex  at  the  treasury.  It  is  to  be  observed 
that  the  place  of  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  had  not  then  thf 
importance  and  dignity  which  now  belong  to  it.  When  there 
was  a  Lord  Treasurer,  that  great  officer  was  generally  prime 
minister :  but,  when  the  white  staff  was  in  commission,  the 
chief  commissioner  hardly  ranked  so  high  as  a  Secretary  of 
State.  It  was  not  till  the  time  of  Walpole  that  the  First  Lord 
of  the  Treasury  became,  under  a  humbler  name,  all  that  the 
Lord  High  Treasurer  had  been. 

Godolphin  had  been  bred  a  page  at  Whitehall,  and  had  early 
acquired  all  the  flexibility  and  the  selfpossession  of  a  veteran 
courtier.  He  was  laborious,  clearheaded,  and  profoundly 
versed  in  the  details  of  finance.  Every  government,  therefore, 
found  him  an  useful  servant ;  and  there  was  nothing  in  his  opin- 
ions or  in  his  character  which  could  prevent  him  from  serving 
any  government.  "  Sidney  Godolphin,"  said  Charles,  "  is  never 
in  the  way,  and  never  out  of  the  way."  This  pointed  remark 
goes  far  to  explain  Godolphin's  extraordinary  success  in  life. 

He  acted  at  different  times  with  both  the  great  political 
parties  :  but  he  never  shared  in  the  passions  of  either.  Like 
most  men  of  cautious  tempers  and  prosperous  fortunes,  he  had  a 
strong  disposition  to  support  whatever  existed.  He  disliked 
revolutions  ;  and,  for  the  same  reason  for  which  he  disliked 
revolutions,  he  disliked  counter  revolutions.  His  deportment 
was  remarkably  grave  and  reserved :  but  his  personal  tastes 
were  low  and  frivolous ;  and  most  of  the  time  which  he  could 
save  from  public  business  was  spent  in  racing,  cardplaying,  and 
cockfighting.  He  now  sate  below  Rochester  at  the  Board  of 
Treasury,  and  distinguished  himself  there  by  assiduity  and 
utelligence. 


rNDEU    OHARLKS    TIIK    SECOND.  237 

Before  the  v.ew  Parliament  was  f.uilered  to  meet  for  the 
despatch  of  business  a  whole  year  elapsed,  an  eventful  year, 
which  has  left  lasting  traces  in  our  manners  and  language. 
Never  before  hiid  political  controversy  been  carried  on  with  so 
much  freedom.  Never  before  had  political  clubs  existed  with 
so  elaborate  an  organisation  or  so  formidable  an  influence. 
The  one  question  of  the  Exclusion  occupied  the  pul)Iic  mind. 
All  the  presses  and  pulpits  of  the  realm  took  part  in  the  con- 
flict. On  one  side  it  was  maintained  that  the  constitution  and 
religion  of  the  state  could  never  be  secure  under  a  Popish 
King  ;  on  the  other,  that  the  right  of  James  to  wear  the  crown 
in  his  turn  was  derived  from  God,  and  could  not  be  annulled, 
even  by  the  consent  of  all  the  branches  of  the  legislature. 
Every  county,  every  town,  every  family,  was  in  agitation. 
The  civilities  and  hospitalities  of  neighbourhood  were  inter- 
rupted. The  dearest  ties  of  friendshiji  and  of  blood  were  sun- 
dered. Even  schoolboys  were  divided  into  angry  parties ;  and 
the  Duke  of  York  and  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury  had  zealous 
adherents  on  all  the  forms  of  Westminster  and  Eton.  The 
theatres  shook  with  the  roar  of  the  contending  factions.  Pope 
Joan  was  brought  on  the  stage  by  the  zealous  Protestants. 
Pensioned  poets  filled  their  prologues  and  epilogues  with 
eulogies  on  the  King  and  the  Duke.  The  malecontents  be- 
sieged the  throne  with  petitions,  (Remanding  that  Parliament 
might  be  forthwith  convened.  The  royalists  sent  up  addresses, 
expressing  the  utmost  abhorrence  of  all  who  presumed  to  dictate 
to  the  sovereign.  The  citizens  of  London  assembled  by  tens 
of  thousands  to  burn  the  Pope  in  efiigy.  The  government 
posted  cavalry  at  Temple  Bar,  and  placed  ordnance  round 
Whitehall.  In  that  year  our  tongue  was  enriched  with  two 
words,  Mob  and  Sham,  remarkable  memorials  of  a  season  of 
tumult  and  imposture.*  Opponents  of  the  court  were  called 
Birminghams,  Petitioners,  and  Exclusionists.  Those  who  took 
the  King's  side  were  Antibirminghams,  Abhorrers,  and  Tan- 
tivies. These  appellations  soon  become  obsolete  :  but  at  this 
time  were  first  heard  two  nicknames  which,  though  originally 

•  North's  Examen,  231,  574. 


238  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

^iven  in  insult,  were  soon  assumed  with  pride,  which  are  still 
in  daily  use,  which  have  spread  as  widely  as  the  English  race, 
and  which  will  last  as  long  as  the  English  literature.  It  is  a 
curious  circumstance  that  one  of  these  nicknames  was  of 
Scotch,  and  the  other  of  Irish,  origin.  Both  in  Scotland  and 
in  Ireland,  misgovernment  had  called  into  existence  bands  of 
desperate  men  wliose  ferocity  was  heightened  by  religious 
enthusiasm.  In  Scotland  some  of  the  persecuted  Covenanters, 
driven  mad  by  oppression,  had  lately  murdered  the  Primate, 
had  taken  arms  against  the  government,  had  obtained  some 
advantages  against  the  King's  forces,  and  had  not  been  put 
down  till  Monmouth,  at  the  head  of  some  troops  from  England, 
had  routed  them  at  Bothwell  Bridjje.  These  zealots  were 
most  numerous  among  the  rustics  ot  the  western  lowlands,  who 
were  vulgarly  called  Whigs.  Thus  the  appellation  of  Whig 
was  fastened  on  the  Presbyterian  zealots  of  Scotland,  and  was 
transferred  to  those  English  23oliticians  who  showed  a  disposition 
to  oppose  the  court,  and  to  treat  Protestant  Nonconformists 
with  indulgence.  The  bogs  of  Ireland,  at  the  same  time, 
afforded  a  refuge  to  Popish  outlaws,  much  resembling  those 
who  were  afterwards  known  as  Whiteboys.  These  men  were 
then  called  Tories.  The  name  of  Tory  was  therefore  given  to 
Englishmen  who  refused  to  concur  in  excluding  a  Roman 
Catholic  prince  from  the  thrqne. 

The  rage  of  the  hostile  factions  would  have  been  sufficiently 
violent,  if  it  had  been  left  to  itself.  But  it  was  studiously 
exasperated  by  the  common  enemy  of  both.  Lewis  still  con- 
tinued to  bribe  and  flatter  both  the  court  and  the  opposition. 
He  exhorted  Charles  to  be  firm  :  he  exhorted  .James  to  raise  a 
civil  war  in  Scotland  :  he  exhorted  the  Whigs  not  to  flinch,  and 
to  rely  with  confidence  on  the  protection  of  France. 

Through  all  this  agitation  a  discerning  eye  might  have 
perceived  that  the  jmblic  opinion  was  gradually  changing. 
The  persecution  of  the  Roman  Catholics  went  on ;  but  con- 
victions were  no  longer  matters  of  course.  A  new  brood  of 
false  witnesses,  among  Avhom  a  villain  named  Dangerfield  was 
the  most  conspicuous,  infested  the   courts  :  but  the   stories  of 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  239 

these  men,  though  better  constructed  than  that  of  Gates,  found 
less  credit.  Juries  were  no  longer  so  easy  of  belief  as  during 
the  panic  which  had  followed  the  naurder  of  Godfrey ;  and 
Judges,  who,  while  the  popular  frenzy  was  at  the  height,  had 
been  its  most  obsequious  instruments,  now  ventured  to  express 
some  part  of  what  they  had  from  the  first  thought. 

At  length,  in  October  1680,  the  Parliament  met.  The 
Whigs  had  so  great  a  majority  in  the  Commons  that  the  Exclu- 
sion Bill  went  through  all  its  stages  there  without  difficulty. 
The  King  scarcely  knew  on  what  members  of  his  own  cabinet  he 
«ould  reckon.  Hyde  had  been  true  to  his  Tory  opinions,  and 
had  steadily  supported  the  cause  of  hereditary  monarchy.  But 
Godolphin,  anxious  for  quiet,  and  believing  that  quiet  could  be 
restored  only  by  concession,  wished  the  bill  to  jjass.  Sunderland, 
ever  false,  and  ever  shortsighted,  unable  to  discern  the  signs  of 
approaching  reaction,  and  anxious  to  conciliate  the  party  which 
he  believed  to  be  irresistible,  determined  to  vote  against  the  court. 
The  Duchess  of  Portsmouth  implored  her  royallover  not  to  rush 
headlong  to  destruction.  If  there  were  any  point  on  which  he 
had  a  scruple  of  conscience  or  of  honour,  it  was  the  question 
of  the  succession  ;  but  during  some  days  it  seemed  that  he  would 
submit.  He  wavered,  asked  what  sum  the  Commons  would  give 
him  if  he  yielded,  and  suffered  a  negotiation  to  be  opened  with 
the  leading  Whigs.  But  a  deep  mutual  distrust  whifh  had  been 
many  years  growing,  and  which  had  been  carefully  nursed  by 
the  arts  of  France,  made  a  treaty  impossible.  Neither  side 
would  place  confidence  in  the  other.  The  whole  nation  now 
looked  with  breathless  anxiety  to  the  House  of  Lords.  The 
assemblage  of  peers  was  large.  The  King  himself  was  present. 
The  debate  was  long,  earnest,  and  occasionally  furious.  Some 
hands  were  laid  on  the  pommels  of  swords  in  a  manner  which 
revived  the  recollection  of  the  stormy  Parliaments  of  Edward 
the  Third  and  Richard  the  Second.  Shaftesbury  and  Essex 
were  joined  by  the  treacherous  Sunderland.  But  the  genius  of 
Halifax  bore  down  all  opposition.  Deserted  by  his  most  im- 
portant colleagues,  and  opposed  to  a  crowd  of  able  antagonists. 
We  defended  the  cause  of  the  Duke  of  York,  in  a  succession  of 


240  HISTORY    OP   ENGLAND. 

speeches  which,  many  years  later,  were  remembered  as  master- 
pieces of  reasoning,  of  wit,  and  of  eloquence.  It  is  seldom  that 
oratory  changes  votes.  Yet  the  attestation  of  contemporaries 
leaves  no  doubt  that,  on  this  occasion,  votes  were  changed  by 
the  oratory  of  Halifax.  The  Bishops,  tiue  to  their  doctrines, 
supported  the  principle  of  hereditary  right,  and  the  bill  was 
rejected  by  a  great  majority.* 

The  party  which  preponderated  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
bitterly  mortified  by  this  defeat,  found  some  consoiatioii  iu  shed- 
duig  the  blood  of  Roman  Catholics.  William  Howard,  Viscount 
Stafford,  one  of  the  unhappy  men  who  had  beeu  accused  of 
a  share  m  the  plot,  was  impeached  ;  and  on  the  testimony  of 
Gates  and  of  two  other  false  witnesses,  Dugdale  and  Turbervill' ■, 
was  found  guilty  of  high  treason,  and  suffered  death.  But  the 
circumstances  of  his  trial  and  execution  ought  to  have  given  an 
useful  warning  to  the  Whig  leaders.  A  large  and  respectable 
minority  of  the  House  of  Lords  pronounced  the  prisoner  not 
guilty.  The  multitude,  which  a  few  months  before  had  received 
the  dying  declarations  of  Oates's  victims  with  mockery  and  ex- 
ecrations, now  loudly  expressed  a  belief  that  Stafford  was  a 
murdered  man.  When  he  with  his  last  breath  protested  his 
innocence,  the  cry  was,  "  God  bless  you,  my  Lord  !  We  believe 
you,  my  Lord."  A  judicious  observer  might  easily  have  pre- 
dicted that  the  blood  then  shed  would  shortly  have  blood. 

The  King  determined  to  try  once  more  the  experiment  of  a 
dissolution.      A   new    Parliament  was  summoned  to  meet  at 

*  A  peer  who  was  present  lias  described  the  effect  of  Halifax's  oratory  in  words 
which  I  will  quote,  because,  though  they  have  been  long  in  print,  they  are  prob- 
ably known  to  few  even  of  the  most  curious  and  diligent  readers  of  history. 

"  Of  powerful  eloquence  and  great  parts  were  the  Duke's  enemies  who  did 
assert  the  Bill ;  but  a  noble  Lord  appeared  against  it  who,  that  day,  in  all  the  force 
of  speech,  in  reason,  in  arguments  of  what  could  concern  the  public  or  the  private 
Interests  of  men,  in  honour,  in  conscience,  in  estate,  did  outdo  himself  and  every 
other  man  ;  and  in  fine  his  conduct  and  his  parts  were  both  victorious,  and  by 
him  all  the  wit  and  malice  of  that  party  was  overthrown." 

This  passage  is  taken  from  a  memoir  of  Henry  Earl  of  Peterborough,  In  a 
volume  entitled  "Succinct  Genealogies,  by.  Robert  Halstead,"  fol.  1685.  The 
name  of  Halstead  is  fictitious.  The  real  authors  were  the  Earl  of  Peterborough 
himself  and  his  chaplain.  The  book  is  extremely  rare.  Only  twenty-four  copies 
vere  printed,  two  of  which  are  now  in  the  British  Museum.  Of  these  two  OM 
belonged  to  George  the  Fourth,  and  the  other  to  Mr.  GrenviUa. 


UNDER    CHAKLES    THE    SECOND.  24i 

Oxford,  in  March,  1G81.  Since  the  days  of  the  Plantagenets 
the  Houses  had  constantly  sat  at  Westminster,  except  when  the 
plague  was  raging  in  the  capital :  but  so  extraordinary  a  conjunc- 
ture seemed  to  require  extraordinary  precautions.  If  the  Parlia- 
ment were  held  in  its  usual  place  of  assembling,  the  House 
of  Commons  might  declare  itself  permanent,  and  might  call  for 
aid  on  the  magistrates  and  citizens  of  Loudon.  The  trainbands 
might  rise  to  defend  Shaftesbury  as  they  had  risen  forty  years 
before  to  defend  Pym  and  Hampden.  The  Guards  might  be 
overpowered,  the  palace  forced,  the  King  a  prisoner  in  the  hands 
of  his  mutinous  subjects.  At  Oxford  there  was  no  such  dangei-. 
The  University  was  devoted  to  the  crown  ;  and  the  gentry  of 
the  neighbourhood  were  generally  Tories.  Here,  therefore,  the 
opposition  had  more  reason  than  the  King  to  apprehend  violence. 
The  elections  were  sharplj^  contested.  The  Whigs  still 
composed  a  majority  of  the  House  of  Commons  :  but  it  was 
plain  that  the  Tory  spirit  was  fast  rising  throughout  the  coun- 
try. It  should  seem  that  the  sagacious  and  versatile  Shaftes- 
bury ought  to  have  foreseen  tlie  coming  change,  and  to  have 
consented  to  the  compromise  which  the  court  offered  :  but  he 
appears  to  have  forgotten  his  old  tactics.  Instead  of  making 
dispositions  which,  in  the  worst  event,  woidd  have  secured  his 
retreat,  he  took  up  a  position  in  which  it  was  necessary  that  he 
should  either  conquer  or  perish.  Perhaps  his  head,  strong  as 
it  was,  had  been  turned  by  popularity,  by  success,  and  by  the 
excitement  of  conflict.  Perhaps  he  had  spurred  his  party  till 
he  could  no  longer  curb  it,  and  was  really  hurried  on  headlong 
by  those  whom  he  seemed  to  guide. 

The  eventful  day  arrived.  The  meetir  g  at  Oxford  resem- 
bled rather  that  of  a  Polish  Diet  than  that  of  an  English  Par- 
Uament.  The  Whig  members  were  escorted  by  great  numbers 
»f  their  armed  and  mounted  tenants  and  serving  men,  who  ex- 
jhanged  looks  of  defiance  with  the  royal  Guards.  The  slight- 
est provocation  might,  under  such  circ«msLa.^v»38,  have  produced 
R  civil  war;  but  neither  side  dared  to  strixe  tiie  first  blow.  The 
King  again  offered  to  consent  to  anything  but  the  Exclusion 
Bill.     The  Commons  were  determined  to  ftccept  nothing  but  the 

16 


242  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Exclusion  Bill.     In  a  few  days  the  Parliament  was  again  dis- 
solved. 

The  King  had  triumphed.  The  reaction,  which  had  begun 
some  months  before  the  meeting  of  the  House  at  Oxford,  now 
went  rapidly  on.  The  nation,  indeed,  was  still  hostile  to  Popery  : 
but,  when  men  reviewed  the  whole  history  of  the  plot,  they 
felt  that  their  Protestant  zeal  had  hiwried  them  into  folly  and 
crime,  and  could  scarcely  believe  that  they  had  been  induced  by 
nursery  tales  to  clamour  for  the  blood  of  fellow  subjects  and 
fellow  Christianso  The  most  loyal,  indeed,  could  not  deny  that 
the  administration  of  Charles  had  often  been  highly  blamable. 
But  men  who  had  not  the  full  information  which  we  possess 
touching  his  dealings  with  France,  and  who  were  disgusted  by 
the  violence  of  the  Whigs,  enumerated  the  large  concessions 
which,  during  the  last  few  years  he  had  made  to  his  Parliaments, 
and  the  still  larger  concessions  which  he  had  declared  himself 
willing  to  make.  He  had  consented  to  the  laws  which  excluded 
Roman  Catholics  from  the  Plouse  of  Lords,  from  the  Privy 
Council,  and  from  all  civil  and  military  offices.  He  had  passed 
the  Habeas  Corpus  Act.  If  securities  yet  stronger  had  not 
been  provided  against  the  dangers  to  which  the  constitution  and 
the  Church  might  be  exposed  under  a  Roman  Catholic  sovereign, 
the  fault  lay,  not  with  Charles  who  had  invited  the  Parliament 
to  propose  such  securities,  but  with  those  Whigs  who  had  re- 
fused to  hear  of  any  substitute  for  the  Exclusion  Bill.  One 
thing  only  had  the  King  denied  to  his  people.  He  had  refused 
to  take  away  his  brother's  birthright.  And  was  there  not  good 
reason  to  believe  that  this  refusal  was  prompted  by  laudable 
feelings  ?  What  selfish  motive  could  faction  itself  impute  to 
the  royal  mind  ?  The  Exclusion  Bill  did  not  curtail  the  reign- 
ing King's  prerogatives,  or  diminish  his  income.  Indeed,  by 
passing  it,  he  might  easily  have  obtained  an  ample  addition  to 
his  own  revenue.  And  what  was  it  to  him  who  ruled  after  him  .'' 
Nay,  if  he  had  personal  predilections,  they  were  known  to  be 
rather  in  favour  of  the  Duke  of  Monmouth  than  of  the  Duke 
of  York.  The  most  natural  explanation  of  the  King's  conduct 
seemed  to  be  that,  careless  as  was  his  temper  and  loose  as  were 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  243 

his  morais,  lie  had,  on  this  occasion,  acted  from  a  sense  of  duty 
and  honour.  And,  if  so,  would  tlie  nation  compel  him  to  do 
what  lie  thought  criminal  and  disgraceful  ?  To  apply,  even  by 
strictly  constitutional  means,  a  violent  pressure  to  liis  conscience, 
seemed  to  zealous  royalists  ungenerous  and  undutiful.  But 
strictly  constitutional  means  were  not  the  only  means  which  the 
Whigs  were  disposed  to  employ.  Signs  were  already  discerni- 
ble which  portended  the  approach  of  great  troubles.  Men,  who, 
in  the  time  of  the  civil  war  and  of  the  Commonwealth,  had  ac- 
quired an  odious  notoriety,  had  emerged  from  the  obscurity  in 
which,  after  the  Restoration,  they  had  hidden  themselves  from 
the  general  hatred,  showed  their  confident  and  busy  faces  every- 
where, and  appeared  to  anticipate  a  second  reign  of  the  Saints. 
Another  Naseby,  another  High  Court  of  Justice,  another 
usurper  on  the  throne,  the  Lords  again  ejected  from  their  hall 
by  violence,  the  Universities  again  purged,  the  Church  again 
robbed  and  persecuted,  the  Puritans  again  dominant,  to  suck 
results  did  the  desperate  policy  of  the  opposition  seem  to  tend. 
Strongly  moved  by  these  apprehensions,  the  majority  of  the 
upper  and  middle  classes  hastened  to  rally  round  the  throne. 
The  situation  of  the  King  bore,  at  tliis  time,  a  great  resemblance 
to  that  in  which  his  father  stood  just  after  the  Remonstrance 
had  been  voted.  But  the  reaction  of  1641  had  not  been  suf- 
fered to  run  its  course.  Charles  the  First,  at  the  very  moment 
when  his  people,  long  estranged,  were  returning  to  him  with 
hearts  disposed  to  reconciliation,  had,  by  a  perfidious  violation 
of  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  realm,  forfeited  their  confidence 
for  ever.  Had  Charles  the  Second  taken  a  similar  course,  had 
he  arrested  the  Whig  leaders  in  an  irregular  manner,  had  he 
impeached  them  of  high  treason  before  a  tribunal  which  had  no 
legal  jurisdiction  over  them,  it  is  highly  probable  that  they 
would  speedily  have  regained  the  ascendency  which  they  had 
lo6t.  Fortunately  for  liimself,  he  was  induced,  at  this  crisis,  to 
adopt  a  policy  singularly  judicious.  He  determined  to  conform 
to  the  law,  but  at  the  same  time  to  make  vigorous  and  unsparing 
use  of  the  law  against  his  advei'sai'ies.  He  was  not  bound  to 
convoke  a  Parliament  till  three  years  should  havf;  elapsed.    He 


244  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

was  not  mucli  distressed  for  money.  The  iiroduce  of  the  taxes 
which  had  been  settled  on  him  for  life  exceeded  the  estimate. 
He  was  at  peace  with  all  the  world.  He  could  retrench  his 
expenses  by  giving  up  the  costly  and  useless  settlement  of 
Tangier ;  and  he  might  hope  for  pecuniary  aid  f i-om  France. 
He  had,  therefore,  ample  time  and  means  for  a  systematic 
attack  on  the  opposition  under  the  forms  of  the  constitution. 
The  Judges  were  removable  at  his  {pleasure:  the  jui'ies  were 
nominated  by  the  Sheriifs  ;  and,  in  almost  all  the  counties  of 
England,  the  Sheriifs  were  nominated  by  himself.  Witnesses, 
of  the  same  class  with  those  who  had  recently  sworn  away  the 
lives  of  Papists,  were  ready  to  swear  away  the  lives  of  Whigs. 

The  first  victim  was  College,  a  noisy  and  violent  demagogue 
of  mean  birth  and  education.  He  was  by  trade  a  joiner,  and 
was  celebrated  as  the  inventor  of  the  Protestant  flail.*  He 
had  been  at  Oxford  when  the  Parliament  sate  there,  and  was 
accused  of  having  planned  a  rising  and  an  attack  on  the  King's 
guards.  Evidence  was  given  against  him  by  Dugdale  and  Tur- 
berville,  the  same  infamous  men  who  had,  a  few  months  earlier, 
borne  false  witness  against  Stafford.  In  the  sight  of  a  jury  of 
country  squires  no  Exclusionist  was  likely  to  find  favour. 
College  was  convicted.  The  crowd  which  filled  the  court  house 
of  Oxford  received  the  verdict  with  a  roar  of  exultation,  as  bar- 
barous as  that  which  he  and  his  friends  had  been  in  the  habit 
of  raising  when  innocent  Papists  were  doomed  to  the  gallows. 
His  execution  was  the  beginning  of  a  new  judicial  massacre 
not  less  atrocious  than  that  in  which  he  had  himself  borne  a 
share. 

The  government,  emboldened  by  this  first  victory,  now 
aimed  a  blow  at  an  enemy  of  a  very  different  class.  It  was 
resolved  that  Shaftesbury  should  be  brought  to  trial  for  his  life. 
Evidence  was  collected  which,  it  was  thought,  would  support  a 
charge  of  treason.  But  the  facts  which  it  was  necessary  to 
prove  were  alleged  to  have  been  committed  in  London.      The 

*  This  is  mentioned  in  the  curious  work  entitled  "  Ragguaglio  della  soleiin* 
Comparsa  fatta  iu  Boma  gli  otto  di  Geiuiaio,  1687,  dall'  illustrissimo  et  ©ccelleu- 
tiasimo  signer  Conto  di  Castleinaiue." 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  245 

Sheriffs  of  London,  chosen  by  the  citizens,  were  zealous  Whigs. 
Thej  named  a  Whig  grand  jury,  wliieh  threw  out  the  bilL 
This  defeat,  far  from  discouraging  those  who  advised  the  Kino-, 
suggested  to  them  a  new  and  daring  scheme.  Since  the  charter 
of  the  capital  was  in  their  way,  that  charter  must  be  annulled. 
It  was  pretended,  therefore,  that  the  City  had  by  some  irreo-u- 
larities  forfeited  its  municipal  privileges  ;  and  proceedings  were 
instituted  against  the  corporation  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench. 
At  the  same  time  those  laws  which  had,  soon  after  the  Restora- 
tion, been  enacted  against  Nonconformists,  and  which  had  re- 
mained dormant  during  the  ascendency  of  tlie  Whigs,  were 
enforced  all  over  the  kinijdom  with  extreme  riirour. 

Tet  the  spirit  of  the  Whigs  was  not  subdued.  Though  in 
evil  plight,  they  were  still  a  numerous  and  powerful  party  ;  and, 
as  they  mustered  strong  in  the  large  towns,  and  especially  in 
the  capital,  they  made  a  noise  and  a  show  more  than  propor- 
tioned to  their  real  force.  Animated  by  the  recollection  of 
past  triumphs,  and  by  the  sense  of  present  oj^pression,  they 
overrated  both  their  strength  and  their  wrongs.  It  was  not 
In  their  power  to  make  out  that  clear  and  overwhelming 
case  which  can  alone  justify  so  violent  a  remedy  as  resistance 
to  an  established  government.  Whatever  they  might  suspect, 
they  could  not  prove  that  their  sovereign  had  entered  into 
a  treaty  with  France  against  the  religion  and  liberties  of 
England.  What  was  apparent  was  not  sufficient  to  warrant  an 
appeal  to  the  sword.  If  the  Lords  had  thrown  out  the  Exclu- 
sion Bill,  they  had  thrown  it  out  in  the  exercise  of  a  right 
coeval  with  the  constitution.  If  the  Kincj  had  dissolved  the 
Oxford  Parliament,  he  had  done  so  by  virtue  of  a  prerogative 
which  had  never  been  questioned.  If  he  had,  since  the  dissolu- 
tion, done  some  harsh  things,  still  those  things  were  in  strict 
conformity  with  the  letter  of  the  law,  and  with  the  recent 
practice  of  the  malecontents  themselves.  If  he  had  prosecuted 
his  opponents,  he  had  prosecuted  them  according  to  the  proper 
forms,  and  before  the  proper  tribunals.  The  evidence  now  pro- 
duced for  the  crown  was  at  least  as  worthy  of  credit  as  the 
evidence  on  which  the  noblest  blood  of  England  had  lately  been 


246  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND- 

«hed  bj  the  opposition.  The  treatment  which  an  accused  Whig 
had  now  to  expect  from  judges,  advocates,  slieriffs,  juries  and 
spectators,  was  no  worse  than  the  treatment  which  had  lately 
been  thought  liy  the  Whigs  good  enough  for  an  accused  Papist. 
If  the  privileges  of  the  City  of  London  were  attacked,  they 
were  attacked,  not  by  military  violence  or  by  any  disputable 
exercise  of  prerogative,  but  according  to  the  regular  practice  of. 
Westminster  Hall.  No  tax  was  imposed  by  royal  authority.. 
No  law  was  suspended.  The  Habeas  Corpus  Act  was  i-espected.. 
Even  the  Test  Act  was  enforced.  The  opposition,  therefore,,, 
could  not  bring  home  to  the  King  that  species  of  misgoverar- 
ment  which  alone  could  justify  insurrection.  And,  even  had 
his  misgovernment  been  more  flagrant  than  it  was,  insurrection 
would  still  have  been  criminal,  because  it  was  almost  certain  to 
be  unsuccessful.  The  situation  of  the  Whiss  in  1682  differed 
widely  from  that  of  the  Roundheads  forty  years  before.  Those 
who  took  up  arms  against  Charles  the  First  acted  under  the 
authority  of  a  Parliament  which  had  been  legally  assembled, 
and  which  could  not,  without  its  own  consent,  be  legally  dis- 
solved. The  opponents  of  Charles  the  Second  were  private 
men.  Almost  all  the  military  and  naval  resources  of  the  king-- 
dom  had  been  at  the  disposal  of  those  who  resisted  Charles  the 
First.  All  the  military  and  naval  resources  of  the  kingdom 
were  at  the  disposal  of  Charles  the  Second.  The  House  of 
Commons  had  been  supported  by  at  least  half  the  nation 
against  Charles  the  First.  But  those  who  were  disposed  to- 
levy  war  against  Charles  the  Second  were  certainly  a  minority. 
It  could  hardly  be  doubted,  therefore,  that,  if  they  attempted  a. 
rising,  they  would  fail.  Still  less  could  it  be  doubted  that  their 
failure  would  aggravate  every  evil  of  which  they  complained. 
The  true  policy  of  the  Whigs  was  to  submit  with  patience  to 
adversity  which  was  the  natural  consequence  and  the  just  pun- 
ishment of  their  errors,  to  wait  patiently  for  that  turn  of  public 
feeling  which  must  inevitably  come,  to  observe  the  law,  and  to- 
avail  themselves  of  the  protection,  imperfect  indeed,  but  by  no 
means  nugatory,  which  the  law  afforded  to  innocence.  Unhap- 
pily they  took  a  very  different  course.     Unscrupulous  and  hoi- 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  247 

headed  chiefs  of  the  party  formed  and  discussed  schemes  of 
resistance,  and  were  heard,  if  not  with  approbation,  yet  with  the 
phow  of  acquiescence,  by  much  better  men  than  themselves.  It 
was  proposed  that  there  should  be  simultaneous  insurrections  in 
London,  in  Cheshire,  at  Bristol,  and  at  Newcastle.  Communi- 
cations were  opened  with  the  discontented  Presbyterians  of 
Scotland,  who  were  suffering  under  a. tyranny  such  as  England, 
in  the  worst  times,  had  never  known.  While  the  leaders  of  the 
opposition  thus  revolved  plans  of  open  rebellion,  but  were  still 
restrained  by  fears  or  scruples  from  taking  any  decisive  step^  a 
design  of  a  very  different  kind  was  meditated  by  some  of  their 
accomplices.  To  fierce  spirits,  unrestrained  by  principle,  or 
maddened  by  fanaticism,  it  seemed  that  to  waylay  and  murder 
the  King  and  his  brother  was  the  shortest  and  surest  way  of 
vindicatinor  the  Protestant  relii>ion  and  the  liberties  of  Ensrland. 
A  place  and  a  time  were  named  ;  and  the  details  of  the  butchery 
were  frequently  discussed,  if  not  definitely  arranged.  This 
scheme  was  known  but  to  few,  and  was  concealed  with  especial 
care  from  the  upright  and  humane  Russell,  and  from  Mon- 
mouth, who,  though  not  a  man  of  delicate  conscience,  would 
have  recoiled  with  horror  from  the  guilt  of  parricide.  Thus 
there  were  two  plots,  one  within  the  other.  The  object  of  the 
great  Whig  plot  wals  to  raise  the  nation  in  arms  against  the 
government.  The  lesser  plot,  commonly  called  the  Rye  House 
Plot,  in  which  only  a  few  desperate  men  were  concerned,  had 
for  its  object  the  assassination  of  the  King  and  of  the  heir 
presumptive. 

Both  plots  were  soon  discovered.  Cowardly  traitors  hastened 
to  save  themselves,  by  divulging  all,  and  more  than  all,  that 
had  passed  in  the  deliberations  of  the  party.  That  only  a  small 
minority  of  those  who  meditated  resistance  had  admitted  into 
their  minds  the  thought  of  assassination  is  fully  estab- 
lished :  but,  as  the  two  conspiracies  ran  into  each  other, 
it  was  not  difficult  for  the  government  to  confotmd  them  to- 
gether. The  just  indignation  excited  by  the  Rye  House  Plot 
was  extended  for  a  time  to  the  whole  Whig  body.  The  King 
was  now  at  liberty  to  exact  full  vengeance  for  years  of  restraint 


248  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

and  humiliation.  Shaftesbury,  indeed,  had  escaped  the  fate 
which  his  manifold  perfidy  had  well  deserved.  He  had  seen 
that  the  ruin  of  his  party  was  at  hand,  had  in  vain  endeavoured 
to  make  his  peace  with  the  royal  brothers,  had  fled  to  Holland, 
and  had  died  there,  under  the  generous  protection  of  a  govern- 
ment whicli  he  had  cruelly  wronged.  Monmouth  threw  himself 
at  his  father's  feet  and  found  mercy,  but  soon  gave  new  offence, 
and  thought  it  prudent  to  go  into  voluntary  exile.  Essex  per- 
ished by  his  own  hand  in  the  Tower.  Russell,  who  appears  to 
have  been  guilty  of  no  offence  falling  within  the  definition  of 
high  treason,  and  Sidney,  of  whose  guilt  no  legal isvidence  could 
be  produced,  were  beheaded  in  defiance  of  law  and  justice. 
Russell  died  with  the  fortitude  of  a  Christian,  Sidney  with  the 
fortitude  of  a  Stoic.  Some  active  politicians  of  meaner  rank 
were  sent  to  the  gallows.  Many  quitted  the  country.  Numer- 
ous prosecutions  for  misprision  of  treason,  for  libel,  and  for  con- 
spiracy were  instituted.  Convictions  were  obtained  without 
difficulty  from  Tory  juries,  and  rigorous  punishments  were  in- 
flicted by  courtly  judges.  With  these  criminal  proceedings  were 
joined  civil  proceedings  scarcely  less  formidable.  Actions  were 
brought  against  persons  who  had  defamed  the  Duke  of  York ; 
and  damages  tantamount  to  a  sentence  of  perpetual  imprison- 
ment were  demanded  by  the  plaintiff,  and  without  difficulty 
obtained.  The  Court  of  King's  "Bench  pronounced  that  the 
franchises  of  the  City  of  London  were  forfeited  to  the  Crown. 
Flushed  with  tliis  great  victory,  the  government  proceeded  to 
attack  the  constitutions  of  other  corporations  which  were  gov- 
erned by  AYhig  officers,  and  which  had  been  in  the  habit  of  re- 
turnincr  Whiij  members  to  Parliament.  Boroua:li  after  boroush 
was  compelled  to  surrender  its  privileges ;  and  new  charters 
were  granted  which  gave  the  ascendency  everywhere  to  the 
Tories. 

These  proceedings,  however  reprehensible,  had  yet  the  sem- 
blance of  legality.  They  were  also  accompanied  by  an  act 
intended  to  quiet  the  uneasiness  with  which  many  loyal  men 
looked  forward  to  the  accession  of  a  Popish  sovereign.  The 
Lady  Aune,  younger  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  York  by  his  first 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  249 

wife,  was  married  to  George,  a  prince  of  the  orthodox  House 
of  Denmark.  The  Tory  gentry  and  clergy  might  now  flatter 
themselves  that  the  Church  of  England  had  been  effectually 
secured  without  any  violation  of  the  order  of  succession.  The 
King  and  the  heir  presumptive  were  nearly  of  the  same  age. 
Both  were  approaching  the  decline  of  life.  The  King's  health 
was  good.  It  was  therefore  probable  that  James,  if  he  came  to 
the  throne,  would  have  but  a  short  reign.  Beyond  his  reign 
there  was  the  gratifying  prospect  of  a  long  series  of  Protestant 
sovereigns. 

The  liberty  of  unlicensed  printing  was  of  little  or  no  use  to 
the  vanquished  party  ;  for  the  temper  of  judges  and  juries  was 
such  that  no  writer  whom  the  government  prosecuted  for  a  libel 
had  any  chance  of  escaping.  The  dread  of  punishment  there- 
fore did  all  that  a  censorship  could  have  done.  Meanwhile,  the 
pulpits  resounded  with  harangues  agaiiist  the  sin  of  rebellion. 
The  treatises  in  which  Filmer  maintained  that  hereditary  des- 
potism was  the  form  of  government  ordained  by  God,  and  that 
limited  monarchy  was  a  pernicious  absurdity,  had  recently  ap- 
peared, and  had  been  favourably  received  by  a  large  section  of 
the  Tory  party.  The  university  of  Oxford,  on  the  very  day 
on  which  Russell  was  put  to  death,  adopted  by  a  solemn  public 
act  these  strange  doctrines,  and  ordered  the  political  works  of 
Buchanan,  Milton,  and  Baxter  to  be  publicly  burned  in  the  court 
of  the  Schools. 

Thus  emboldened,  the  King  at  length  ventured  to  overstep  . 
the  bounds  which  he  had  during  some  years  observed,  and  to 
violate  the  plain  letter  of  the  law.  The  law  was  that  not  more 
than  three  years  should  pass  between  the  dissolving  of  one  Par- 
liament and  the  convoking  of  another.  But,  when  three  years 
had  elapsed  after  the  dissolution  of  the  Parliament  which  sate 
at  Oxford,  no  writs  were  issued  for  an  election.  This  infraction 
of  the  constitution  was  the  more  reprehensible,  because  the  King 
had  little  reason  to  fear  a  meeting  with  a  new  House  of  Com- 
mons. The  counties  were  generally  on  his  side  ;  and  many 
boroughs  in  which  the  Whigs  had  lately  held  sway  had  been  so 
remodelled  that  they  were  certain  to  return  none  but  courtiers 


250  HISTOUY    OF    ENGLAND. 

In  a  short  time  the  hxw  wn,s  again  violated  in  order  to  gratify 
the  Duke  of  York.     That  prince  was,  partly  on  account  of  his 
religion,  and  partly  on   account  of  the  sternness  and  harshness 
of  his  nature,  so  unpopular  that  it  had  been  thought  necessary 
to  keep  him  out  of  sight  while  the  Exclusion  Bill  was  before 
Parliament,  lest  his  appearance  should  give  an  advantage  to  the 
party  which   was  sti'uggling  to  deprive  him  of  his   birthright. 
He  had  therefore  been  sent  to  govern  Scotland,  where  the  sav- 
age old  tyrant  Lauderdale  was  sinking  into   the  grave.     Even 
Lauderdale  was   now   outdone.     The  administration  of  James 
was  marked  by  odious  laws,  by  barbarous  punishments,  and  by 
judgments  to  the  iniquity  of  which  even  that  age  furnished  no 
parallel.     The   Scottish  Privy  Council  had  jiower  to  put  state 
prisoners  to  the  question.     But  the  sight  was  so  dreadful  that, 
as  soon  as  the  boots  appeared,  even  the  most  servile  and  hard- 
hearted courtiers  hastened  out  of  the  chamber.     The  board  was. 
sometimes  quite  deserted :  and  it  was  at  length  found  necessary 
to  make  an  order  that  the  members   should  keep  their  seats   on 
such  occasions.     The  Duke  of  York,  it  was  remarked,  seemed 
to  take  pleasure  in  the  spectacle  which  some  of  the  worst  men 
then  living  were  unable  to  contemplate  without  pity  and  horror. 
He  not  only  came   to   Council  when  the   torture   was  to  be  in- 
flicted, but  watched  the  agonies  of  the  sufferers  with  that  soi't  of 
interest  and  complacency  with  which  men  observe  a  curious  ex- 
periment in  science.     Thus  he  employed  himself  at  Edinburgh, 
till  the  event  of  the  conflict  between  the  court  and  the  Whigs 
was  no  longer  doubtful.     He  then  returned  to  England  t  but  he 
was  still  excluded  by  the  Test  Act  from  all  public  emplo}Tnent ; 
nor  did  the  King  at  first  think  it  safe  to  violate  a  statute  which 
the  great  majority  of  his  most  loyal  subjects  regarded  as  one  of 
the  chief  securities   of  their  religion  and  of  their  civil  rights. 
When,  however,  it  appeared,  from  a   succession   of  trials,  that 
the  nation  had  patience  to   endure   almost  anything  that   the 
government  had  courage   to  do,  Charles  ventured  to   dispense 
with  the  law  in  his  brother's  favour.     The  Duke  again  took  his 
seat  in  the  Council,  and  resumed  the  direction  of  naval  affairs. 
These  breaches  of   the  constitution  excited,  it  is  true,  some 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  251 

murmurs  among   the  moderate   Tories,   and   were   not  unani- 
mously approved   even   by  the   King's  ministers.     Halifax  in 
particular,  now  a  Marquess   and  Lord  Privy  Seal,  had,  from 
the  very  day  on  which  the  Tories   had  by  his  help  gained  the 
ascendant,  begun   to  turn  Whig.     As   soon  as   the   Exclusion 
Bill  had  been  thrown  out,  he  had  pressed  the  House  of  Lords 
to  make   i>rovision  against  the  danger  to  which,  in  the   next 
reign,  the  liberties  and  religion  of  the  nation  might  be  exposed. 
He  now  saw  with  alarm  the  violence   of  that  reaction  which 
was,  in   no  small  measure,  his  own  work.     He  did  not  try  to 
conceal  the  scorn  which  he  felt  for  the  servile  doctrines  of  the 
University  of  Oxford.     He  detested  the  French  alliance.     He 
(disapproved  of  the  long  intermission  of   Parliaments.     He  re- 
gretted   the    severity  with   which  the   vanquished    party   was 
\treated.      He  who,  when   the  Whigs   were  predominant,  had 
ventured    to    pronounce    Stafford   not  guilty,   ventured,   when 
they  were  vanquished  and  helpless,  to   intercede  for  Russell. 
At  one  of  the  last  Councils  which  Charles  held  a  remarkable 
scene  took  place.     The  charter  of  Massachusetts  had  been  for- 
feited.    A  question  arose  how,  for  the  future,  the  colony  should 
be  governed.     The  general  opinion  of  the   board  was  that  the 
whole  power,  legislative  as  well   as   executive,  should  abide  in 
the  crown.     Halifax  took  the   opposite  side,  and   argued  with 
great  energy  against  absolute  monarchy,  and  in  favour  of  rep- 
resentative government.     It  was  vain,  he  said,  to   think  that  a 
population,  sprung  from   the   English  stock,  and  animated  by 
English  feelings,  would  long  bear  to   be   deprived  of  English 
institutions.     Life,  he  exclaimed,  would  not  be  worth  having 
in   a  country  where  liberty  and  property  were  at  the  mercy  of 
one  despotic  master.     The  Duke  of  York  was  greatly  incensed 
by  this  language,  and  represented  to   his  brother  the  danger  of 
retaining  in  office  a  man  who  appeared  to   be   infected  with  all 
•the  worst  notions  of  Marvell  and  Sidney. 

Some  modern  writers  have  blamed  Halifax  for  continuing 
in  the  ministry  while  he  disapproved  of  the  manner  in  which 
both  domestic  and  foreign  affairs  were  conducted.  But  this 
censure  is   unjust.     Indeed  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  the  word 


252  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

ministry,  in  the  sense  in  wliich  we  use  it,  was  then  unknown.* 
The  thing  itself  did  not  exist ;  for  it  belongs  to  an  age  in  which 
parliamentary  government  is  fully  established.  At  present  the 
chief  servants  of  the  crown  form  one  body.  They  are  under- 
stood to  be  on  terms  of  friendly  confidence  with  each  other,  and 
to  agree  as  to  the  main  principles  on  which  the  executive  ad- 
ministration ought  to  be  conducted.  If  a  slight  difference  of 
opinion  arises  among  them,  it  is  easily  compromised :  but,  if 
one  of  them  differs  from  the  rest  on  a  vital  point,  it  is  his  duty 
to  resign.  While  he  retains  his  office,  he  is  held  responsible 
even  for  steps  which  he  has  tried  to  dissuade  his  colleagues 
from  taking.  In  tlie  seventeenth  century,  the  heads  of  the 
various  branches  of  the  administration  were  bound  toafether  in 
no  such  ijartnershij:).  Each  of  them  was  accountable  for  his 
own  acts,  for  the  use  which  he  made  of  his  own  official  seal, 
for  the  documents  which  he  signed,  for  the  counsel  which  he 
gave  to  the  King.  No  statesman  was  held  answerable  for  what 
he  had  not  himself  done,  or  induced  others  to  do.  If  he  took 
care  not  to  be  the  agent  in  what  was  wrong,  and  if,  when  con- 
sulted, he  recommended  what  was  right,  he  was  blameless.  It 
would  have  been  thought  strange  scrupulosity  in  him  to  quit 
his  post,  because  his  advice  as  to  matters  not  sti-ictly  within  liis 
own  department  was  not  taken  by  his  master ;  to  leave  the 
Board  of  Admiralty,  for  example,  because  the  finances  were  in 
disorder,  or  the  Board  of  Treasury  because  the  foreign  rela- 
tions of  the  kingdom  were  in  an  unsatisfactory  state.  It  was, 
therefore,  by  no  means  unusual  to  see  in  high  oflice,  at  the  same 
time,  men  who  avowedly  differed  from  one  another  as  widely 
as  ever  Pulteney  differed  from  Walpole,  or  Fox  from  Pitt. 

The  moderate  and  constitutional  counsels  of  Halifax  were 
timidly  and  feebly  seconded  by  Francis  North,  Lord  Guildford, 
who  had  lately  been  made  Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal.  The 
character  of  Guildford  has  been  drawn  at  full  length  by  his 
brother  Roger  North,  a  most  intolerent  Tory,  a  most  affected 
and  pedantic  writer,  but  a  vigilant  observer  of  all  those  minute 

e 

►North's  Exameu,  69. 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  25S 

circumstances  which  throw  light  on  the  dispositions  of  men.  It 
is  remarkable  that  the  biographer,  though  he  was  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  strongest  fi-aternal  partiality,  and  though  he  was 
evidently  anxious  to  produce  a  flattering  likeness,  was  unable 
to  portray  the  Lord  Keeper  otherwise  than  as  the  most  ignoble 
of  mankind.  Yet  the  intellect  of  Guildford  was  clear,  his  in- 
dustry great,  his  proficiency  in  letters  and  science  respectable, 
and  his  legal  learning  more  than  respectable.  His  faults  were 
selfishness,  cowardice,  and  meanness.  He  was  not  insensible  to 
the  power  of  female  beauty,  nor  averse  from  excess  in  wine. 
Yet  neither  wine  nor  beauty  could  ever  seduce  the  cautious  and 
frugal  libertine,  even  in  his  earliest  youth,  into  one  fit  of  indis- 
creet generosity.  Though  of  noble  descent,  he  rose  in  his  pro- 
fession by  paying  ignominious  homage  to  all  who  possessed 
influence  in  the  courts.  He  became  Chief  Justice  of  the  Com- 
mon Pleas,  and  as  such  was  party  to  some  of  the  foulest  judicial 
murders  recorded  in  our  history.  He  had  sense  enough  to  per- 
ceive from  the  first  that  Oates  and  Bedloe  were  impostors :  but 
the  Parliament  and  the  country  were  greatly  excited  :  the  govern- 
ment had  yielded  to  the  pressure ;  and  North  was  not  a  man  to 
risk  a  good  place  for  the  sake  of  justice  and  humanity.  Accord- 
ingly, while  he  was  in  secret  drawing  up  a  refutation  of  the 
whole  romance  of  the  Popish  plot,  he  declared  in  public  that 
the  truth  of  the  story  was  as  plain  as  the  sun  in  heaven,  and 
was  not  ashamed  to  browbeat,  from  the  seat  of  judgment,  the 
unfortunate  Roman  Catholics  who  were  arraigned  before  him 
for  their  lives.  He  had  at  length  reached  the  highest  post  in 
the  law.  But  a  lawyer,  who,  after  many  years  devoted  to  pro- 
fessional labour,  engages  in  politics  for  the  first  time  at  an  ad- 
vanced period  of  life,  seldom  distinguishes  himself  as  a  states- 
man ;  and  Guildford  was  no  exception  to  the  general  rule.  He 
was  indeed  so  sensible  of  his  deficiencies  that  he  never  attended 
the   meetinjTs  of  his  colleagues   on   foreign   affairs.     Even   on 

o  o  O 

questions  relating  to  his  own  profession  his  opinion  had  less 
weiglit  at  the  Council  board  than  that  of  any  man  who  has  ever 
held  the  Great  Seal.  Such  as  his  influence  was,  however,  he 
used  it,  as  far  as  he  dared,  on  the  side  of  the  laws. 


254  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

The  chief  opponent  of  Halifax  was  Lawrence  Hyde,  who 
had  recently  been  created  Earl  of  Rochester.  Of  all  Tories, 
Rochester  was  the  most  intolerent  and  uncompromising.  The 
moderate  members  of  his  party  complained  that  the  whole 
patronage  ot  the  Treasury,  while  he  was  First  Commissioner 
there,  went  to  noisy  zealots,  whose  only  claim  to  promotion  was 
that  they  were  always  drinking  confusion  to  Whiggery,  and 
lighting  bonfires  to  burn  the  Exclusion  Bill.  The  Duke  of 
York,  pleased  with  a  spirit  which  so  much  resembled  his  own, 
supported  his  brother  in  law  passionately  and  obstinately. 

The  attempts  of  the  rival  ministers  to  surmount  and  sup- 
plant each  other  kept  the  court  in  incessant  agitation.  Hali- 
fax pressed  the  King  to  summon  a  Parliament,  to  grant  a  gen- 
eral amnesty,  to  deprive  the  Duke  of  York  of  all  share  in  the 
government,  to  recall  Monmouth  from  banishment,  to  break 
with  Lewis,  and  to  form  a  close  union  with  Holland  on  the 
principles  of  the  Triple  Alliance.  The  Duke  of  York,  on  the 
other  hand,  dreaded  the  meeting  of  a  Parliament,  regarded  the 
vanquished  Whigs  with  undiminished  hatred,  still  flattered  him- 
self that  the  design  formed  fourteen  years  before  at  Dover 
might  be  accomplished,  daily  represented  to  his  brother  the  im- 
propriety of  suffering  one  who  was  at  heart  a  Republican  to 
hold  the  Privy  Seal,  and  strongly  recommended  Rochester  for 
the  great  place  of  Lord  Treasurer. 

While  the  two  factions  were  struggling,  Godolphin,  cautious, 
silent,  and  laborious,  observed  a  neutrality  between  them.  Sun- 
derland, with  his  usual  restless  perfidy,  intrigued  against  them 
both.  He  had  been  turned  out  of  office  in  disgrace  for  having 
voted  in  favour  of  the  Exclusion  Bill,  but  had  made  his  peace 
by  employing  the  good  offices  of  the  Duchess  of  Portsmouth 
and  by  cringing  to  the  Duke  of  York,  and  was  once  more  Sec- 
retary of  State. 

Nor  was  Lewis  negligent  or  inactive.  Everything  at  that 
moment  favoured  his  designs.  He  had  nothing  to  apprehend 
from  the  German  empire,  which  was  then  contending  against 
the  Turks  on  the  Danube.  Holland  could  not,  unsupported 
venture  to  oppose  him.     He  was  therefore  at  liberty  to  indulge 


UNDER    CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  255 

his  ambition  and  insolence  without  restraint.  He  seized  StraS' 
burg,  Courtray,  Luxemburg.  He  exacted  from  the  republic  of 
Genoa  the  most  hunjiliating  submissions.  The  power  of  France 
at  that  time  reached  a  higher  point  than  it  ever  before  or  ever 
after  attained,  during  the  ten  centuries  which  separated  the 
reign  of  Charlemagne  from  the  reign  of  Napoleon.  It  was  not 
easy  to  say  where  her  acquisitions  would  stop,  if  only  England 
could  be  kept  in  a  state  of  vassalage.  The  first  object  of  tha 
court  of  Versailles  was  therefore  to  prevent  the  calling  of  a 
Parliament  and  the  reconciliation  of  English  parties.  For  this 
end  bribes,  promiseSj  and  menaces  were  unsparingly  employed. 
Charles  was  sometimes  allured  by  the  hope  of  a  subsidy,  and 
sometimes  frightened  by  being  told  that,  if  he  convoked  the 
Houses,  the  secret  articles  of  the  treaty  of  Dover  should  be 
published.  Several  Privy  Councillors  were  bought ;  and  at- 
tempts were  made  to  buy  Halifax,  but  in  vain.  "When  he  had 
been  found  incorruptible,  all  the  art  and  influence  of  the  French 
embassy  were  employed  to  drive  him  from  office:  but  his  pol- 
ished wit  and  his  various  accomplishments  had  made  him  so 
agreeable  to  his  master,  that  the  design  failed.'"' 

Halifax  was  not  content  with  standing  on  the  defensive.  He 
openly  accused  Rochester  of  malversation.  An  inquiry  took 
place.  It  appeared  that  forty  thousand  pounds  had  been  lost 
to  the  public  by  the  mismanagement  of  the  First  Lord  of  the 
Treasury.  In  consequence  of  this  discovery  he  was  not  only 
forced  to  relinquish  his  hopes  of  the  white  staff,  but  was  re- 
moved from  the  direction  of  the  finances  to  the  more  dignified 
but  less  lucrative  and  importau;  post  of  Lord  President.  "  I 
have  seen  people  kicked  down  stairs,"  said  Halifax  ;  "  but  my 
Lord  Rochester  *.s   the  first  person  that  I  ever  saw  kicked  up 

*  Lord  Preeton,  who  was  envoy  at  Paris,  wrote  thence  to  Halifax  as  follows  : 
"I  find  that  your  Lordship  lies  e  IJ  under  the  r-.ame  misfortune  of  being  n<? 
favourite  to  this  court ;  and  Monsieur  Barillon  dare  not  do  you  the  honour  to 
ehine  upon  you,  since  his  master  frowneth.  laey  know  very  well  your  lordship's 
qualifications,  which  make  them  fear  and  consequently  hate  you  ;  rjid  be  assured, 
my  lord,  if  all  their  strength  can  send  you  to  Rufford,  it  shall  bo  employed  for 
that  end.  Two  things,  I  hear,  they  particularly  object  against  you,  your  secrecy, 
and  your  being  incapable  of  being  corrupted.  Against  these  two  things  I  know 
they  have  declared."    The  date  of  tlie  letter  is  October  5,  N.  s.  1683. 


256  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

stairs."     Godolphin,  now  a  peer,  became  First  Commissioner  of 
the  Treasury. 

Still,  however,  the  contest  continued.  The  event  depended 
wholly  on  the  will  of  Charles ;  and  Charles  could  not  come  to 
a  decision.  In  his  perplexity  he  promised  everything  to  every- 
body. He  would  stand  by  France :  he  would  break  with 
France :  he  would  never  meet  another  Parliament :  he  would 
order  writs  for  a  Parliament  to  be  issued  without  delay.  He 
assured  the  Duke  of  York  that  Halifax  should  be  dismissed 
from  office,  and  Halifax  that  the  Duke  should  be  sent  to  Scot- 
land. In  public  he  affected  implacable  resentment  against 
Monmouth,  and  in  private  conveyed  to  Monmouth  assurances 
of  unalterable  affection.  How  long,  if  the  King's  life  had 
been  protracted,  his  hesitation  would  have  lasted,  and  what 
would  have  been  his  resolve,  can  only  be  conjectured.  Early  in 
the  year  1685,  while  hostile  parties  were  anxiously  awaiting  his 
determination,  he  died,  and  a  new  scene  opened.  In  a  few 
months  the  excesses  of  the  government  obliterated  the  impres- 
sion which  had  been  made  on  the  public  mind  by  the  excesses 
of  the  opposition.  The  violent  reaction  which  had  laid  the 
Whig  party  prostrate  was  followed  by  a  still  more  violent  re- 
action in  the  opposite  direction  ;  and  signs  not  to  be  mistaken 
indicated  that  the  great  conflict  between  the  prerogatives  of  the 
Crown  and  the  privileges  of  the  Parliament,  was  about  to  be 
brought  to  a  final  issue. 


STATK    OK    ENGLAND    IN    1685,  251 


CHAPTER  ITT. 

I  INTEND,  in  this  chapter,  to  give  •  a  description  of  the  state 
in  which  England  was  at  the  time  wlien  the  crown  passed  from 
Charles  the  Second  to  his  brother. .  Such  a  description,  com- 
posed from  scanty  and  dispersed  materials,  must  necessarily  be 
very  imperfect.  Yet  it  may  perhaps  correct  some  false  notions 
which  would  make  the  subsequent  narrative  unintelligible  or 
uninstructive. 

Tf  we  would  study  with  profit  the  liistory  of  our  ancestors, 
we  must  be  constantly  on  our  guard  against  that  delusion  which 
the  well  known  names  of  families,  places,  and  offices  naturally 
produce,  and  must  never  forget  that  the  country  of  which  we 
read  was  a  v  ry  different  country  from  that  in  which  we  live. 
In  evory  experimental  science  there  is  a  tendency  towards  per- 
fect! nc  In  every  human  being  there  is  a  wish  to  ameliorate 
his  own  condition.  These  two  principles  have  often  sufiiced, 
even  when  counteracted  by  great  public  calamities  and  by  bad 
institutions,  to  carjy  civilisation  rapidly  forward.  No  ordinary 
misfortune,  np  ordinary  misgovern ment,  will  do  so  much  to 
make  a  nation  wretched,  as  the  constant  progress  of  physical 
knowledge  and  the  constant  effort  of  every  man  to  better  him- 
self will  do  to  make  a  nation  prosperous.  It  has  often  been 
found  that  profuse  expenditure,  heavy  taxation,  absurd  com- 
mercial restrictions,  corrupt  tribunals,  disastrous  wars,  seditions, 
persecutions,  conflagrations,  inundations,  have  not  been  able  to 
destroy  capital  so  fast  as  the  exertions  of  private  citizens  have 
been  able  to  create  it.  It  can  easily  be  proved  that,  in  our  own 
land,  the  national  wealth  has,  during  at  least  six  centuries,  been  [ 
almost  uninterruptedly  increasing  ;  that  it  was  greater  under 
the  Tudors  than  under  the  Planfragenets  ;  that  it  was  greater 

17 


258  HISTOBY    OF    ENGLAND. 

under  the  Stuarts  than  under  the  Tudors  ;  that,  in  spite  of  bat« 
ties,  sieges,  and  confiscations,  it  was  greater  on  the  daj  of  the 
Restoration  than  on  the  day  when  the  Long  Parliament  met ; 
that,  in  spite  of  maladministration,  of  extravagance,  of  public 
bankruptcy,  of  two  costly  and  unsuccessful  wars,  of  the  pesti- 
lence and  of  the  fire,  it  was  greater  on  the  day  of  the  death  of 
Charles  the  Second  than  on  the  day  of  his  Restoration.  This 
progress,  having  continued  during  many  ages,  became  at  length, 
about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  portentously  rapid, 
and  has  proceeded,  during  the  nineteenth,  with  acceleiated 
velocity.  In  consequence  partly  of  our  geographical  and  partly 
of  our  moral  jjosition,  we  have,  during  several  generations,  been 
exempt  from  evils  which  have  elsewhere  impeded  the  efforts 
and  destroyed  the  fruits  of  industry.  While  every  part  of  the 
Continent,  from  Moscow  to  Lisbon,  has  been  the  theatre  of 
bloody  and  devastating  wars,  no  hostile  standard  has  been  seen 
here  but  as  a  trophy.  While  revolutions  have  taken  place  all 
around  us,  our  government  has  never  once  been  subverted  by 
violence.  During  more  than  a  hundred  years  there  has  been  in 
our  island  no  tumult  of  sufficient  importance  to  be  called  an  in- 
surrection ;  nor  has  the  law  been  once  borne  down  either  by 
popular  fury  or  by  regal  tyranny  :  public  credit  has  been  held 
sacred  :  the  administration  of  justice  has  been  pure :  even  in 
times  which  might  by  Englishmen  be  justly  called  evil  times, 
we  have  enjoyed  what  almost  every  other  nation  in  the  world 
would  have  considered  as  an  ample  measure  of  oivil  and  relig- 
ious freedom.  Every  man  has  felt  entire  confidence  that  the 
state  would -protect  him  in  the  possession  of  what  had  been 
earned  by  his  diligence  and  hoarded  by  his  selfdeniaL  Under 
the  benignant  influence  of  peace  and  liberty,  science  has  flour- 
ished, and  has  been  applied  to  practical  purposes  on  a  scale 
never  before  known.  The  consequence  is  that  a  change  to 
which  the  history  of  the  o^d  world  furnishes  no  parallel  has 
taken  place  in  our  country.  Could  the  England  of  1 685  be, 
by  some  magical  process,  set  before  our  eyes,  we  should  not 
know  one  landscape  in  a  hundred  or  one  building  in  ten  thou- 
sand.     The  country  gentleman  would  not  recognise  his  own 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  259 

fields.  The  inhabitant  of  the  town  would  not  recognise  his  own 
street.  Everything  has  been  changed,  but  the  great  features  of 
nature,  and  a  few  massive  and  durable  works  of  human  art. 
We  might  find  out  Snowdon  and  Windermere,  the  Cheddar 
Clififs  and  Beachy  Head.  We  might  find  out  here  and  there  a 
Norman  minster,  or  a  castle  which  witnessed  the  wars  of  the 
Roses.  But,  with  such  rare  exceptions,  everything  would  be 
strange  to  us.  Many  thousands  of  square  miles  which  are  now 
rich  corn  land  and  meadow,  intersected  by  green  hedgerows, 
and  dotted  with  villages  and  pleasant  country  seats,  would  ap- 
pear as  moors  overgrown  with  furze,  or  fens  abandoned  to 
wild  ducks.  We  should  see  straggling  huts  built  of  wood  and 
covered  with  thatch,  where  we  now  see  manufacturinof  towns 
and  seaports  renowned  to  the  farthest  ends  of  the  world.  The 
capital  itself  would  shrink  to  dimensions  not  much  exceeding 
those  of  its  present  suburb  on  the  south  of  the  Thames.  Not 
less  strange  to  us  would  be  the  garb  and  manners  of  the  peo- 
ple, the  furniture  and  the  equipages,  the  interior  of  the  shops 
and  dwellings.  Such  a  change  in  the  state  of  a  nation  seems 
to  be  at  least  as  well  entitled  to  the  notice  of  a  historian  as  any 
change  of  the  dynasty  or  of  the  ministry.* 

One  of  the  first  objects  of  an  inquirer,  who  wishes  to  form  a 
correct  notion  of  the  state  of  a  community  at  a  given  time,  must 
be  to  ascertain  of  how  many  persons  that  community  then  con- 
sisted. Unfortunately  the  population  of  England  in  1685,  can- 
not be  ascertained  with  perfect  accuracy.  For  no  great  state  had 
tlien  adopted  the  wise  course  of  periodically  numbering  the 
people.  All  men  were  left  to  conjecture  for  themselves  ;  and, 
as  they  generally  conjectured  without  examining  facts,  and  un- 
der the  influence  of  strong  passions  and  prejudices,  their  guesses 
were  often  ludicrously  absurd.       Even  intelligent  Londoners 

♦During  the  interval  wliir>h  has  elapsed  sirioe  this  chapter  was  written,  Eng- 
land has  continued  to  advance  rapidly  in  material  prosperity.  I  have  left  my 
text  nearly  a<!  it  originally  stood  :  but  I  have  added  a  few  notes  which  may  en- 
able the  reader  to  form  some  notion  of  the  prosrre  s  which  has  been  made  during 
the  last  nine  years  ;  and.  in  creneral.  I  would  desire  him  to  remember  that  there 
is  scarcely  a  district  which  is  not  more  populous,  or  a  source  of  wealth  which  i? 
aot  more  productive,  at  present  than  in  1K48.    (1SB7J 


260  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND, 

ordinarily  talked  of  London  as  containing  several  millions  of 
souls.  It  was  confidently  asserted  by  many  tii;it,  during  the 
thirty-five  years  which  had  elapsed  between  the  accession  of 
Charles  the  First  and  the  Restoration,  the  population  of  the  City 
had  increased  by  two  millions.*  Even  while  the  ravages  of 
the  plague  and  fire  were  recent,  it  was  the  fashion  to  say  that 
the  capital  still  had  a  million  and  a  half  of  inhabitants. f  Some 
persons,  disgusted  by  these  exaggerations,  ran  violently  into  the 
opposite  extreme.  Thus  Isaac  Vossius,  a  man  of  undoubted 
parts  and  learning,  strenuously  maintained  that  there  were  only 
two  millions  of  human  beings  in  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland 
taken  together.  J 

We  are  not,  however,  left  without  the  means  of  correcting 
the  wild  blunders  into  which  some  minds  were  hurried  by 
national  vanity  and  others  by  a  morbid  love  of  paradox.  There 
are  extant  three  computations  which  seem  to  be  entitled  to  pecu- 
liar attention.  They  are  entirely  independent  of  each  other  : 
they  proceed  on  different  principles  ;  and  yet  there  is  little  dif- 
ference in  the  results. 

One  of  these  computations  was  made  in  the  year  1696  by 
Gregory  King,  Lancaster  herald,  a  political  arithmetician  of 
great  acuteuess  and  judgment.  The  basis  of  his  calculations 
was  the  number  of  houses  returned  in  1690  by  the  officers  who 
made  the  last  collection  of  the  hearth  money.  The  conclusion  at 
which  he  arrived  was  that  the  population  of  England  was  nearly 
five  millions  and  a  half.§ 

About  the  same  time  King  William  the  Third  was  desirous 
to  ascertain  the  comparative  strength  of   the  religious  sects  into 

*  Observations  on  the  Bills  of  Mortality,  by  Cai)tain  John  Graunt (Sir' William 
Petty),  chap.  xi. " 

t  "  She  doth  comprehend 

Full  fifteen  hundred  thousand  which  do  spend 
Their  dayA  within." 

Great  Britain's  Beauty,  IG'i  1, 
t  Isaac  Vossius,  De  Magnitudine  XJrbium  Sinarum,  1685.    Vossius,  as  wo  learn 
from  Saint  Evremond,  talked  on  this  subject  of  tener  and  longer  than  fashionable 
circles  cared  to  listen. 

§  King's  Natural  and  Political  Observations,  169(5,  This  valuable  treatise,  which 
ought  to  be  read  as  the  author  wrote  it,  and  not  as  garble<i  by  Davenant,  will  be 
found  in  some  editions  of  Chalmers's  Estimate. 


STATE  OF  ENGLAND  IN  1685,  261 

which  the  community  was  divided.  Au  inquiry  was  instituted ; 
and  reports  were  hxid  before  liim  from  all  the  dioceses  of 
the  realm.  According  to  these  reports  the  number  of  his  En- 
glish subjects  must  have  been  about  five  million  two  hundred 
thousand.* 

Lastly,  in  our  own  daj's,  Mr.  Finlaison,  an  actuary  of 
eminent  skill,  subjected  the  ancient  jiarochial  registers  of  bap- 
tisms, marriages,  and  burials,  to  all  the  tests  which  the  modern 
improvements  in  statistical  science  enabled  him  to  apply.  His 
opinion  was,  that,  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the 
population  of  England  was  a  little  under  five  million  two  hun- 
dred thousand  souls. f 

Of  these  three  estimates,  framed  without  concert  by  different 
persons  from  different  sets  of  materials,  the  highest,  which  is  that 
of  King,  does  not  exceed  the  lowest,  which  is  that  of  Finlaison, 
by  one  twelfth.  'We  may,  therefore,  with  confidence  pronounce 
that,  when  James  the  Second  reigned,  England  contained  be- 
tween five  million  and  five  million  five  hundred  thousand  hihabi- 
tants.  On  the  very  highest  supposition  she  then  had  less  than 
one  third  of  her  present  population,  and  less  than  three  times  the 
population  which  is  now  collected  in  her  gigantiq  capital. 

The  increase  of  the  people  has  been  great  in  every  part  of 
the  kingdom,  but  generally  much  greater  in  the  northern  than 
in  the  southern  shires.  In  truth  a  large  part  of  the  country 
beyond  Trent  was,  down  to  the  eighteenth  century,  in  a  state 
of  barbarism.  Physical  and  moral  causes  had  concurred  to 
prevent  civilisation  from  spreading  to  that  region.  The  air 
was  inclement ;  the  soil  was  generally  such  as  required  skilful 
and  industrious  cultivation  ;  and  there  could  be  little  skill  or 
industry  in  a  tract  which  was  often  the  theatre  of  war,  and 
which,  even  when  there  was  nominal  peace,  was  constantly 
desolated  by  bands  of   Scottish   marauders.     Before   the  union 

*  Dalrymple's  Appendix  to  Pait  IT.  Book  I.  Tlie  practice  of  reckoning 
the  population  by  sects  was  long  fasliioiiable,  Gulliver  says  of  the  King  of 
Brobdignag  ;  "  lie  laughed  at  my  odd  arithmetic,  as  he  was  pleased  to  call  it,  in 
reckoning  the  numbers  of  our  people  by  a  computation  drawn  from  the  several 
sects  among  us  in  religion  and  politics." 

t  Preface  to  the  Population  Returns  of  1831, 


Ji62  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

of  the  two  British  crowns,  and  long  after  that  union,  there 
was  as  great  a  difference  between  Middlesex  and  Northumber" 
land  as  there  now  is  between  Massachusetts  and  the  settlements 
of  those  squatters  who,  far  to  the  west  of  the  Mississippi, 
administer  a  rude  justice  with  the  rifle  and  the  dagger.  In  the 
reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  the  traces  left  by  ages  of  slaughter 
and  pillage  were  distinctly  perceptible,  many  miles  south  of  the 
Tweed,  in  the  face  of  the  country  and  in  the  lawless  manners 
of  the  people.  There  was  still  a  large  class  of  mosstroopers, 
whose  calling  was  to  plunder  dwellings  and  to  drive  away  whole 
herds  of  cattle.  It  was  found  necessary,  soon  after  the  Restor- 
ation, to  enact  laws  of  great  severity  for  the  prevention  of  these 
outrages.  The  magistrates  of  Northumberland  and  Cumberland 
were  authorised  to  raise  bands  of  armed  men  for  the  defence  of 
property  and  order ;  and  provision  was  made  for  meeting  the 
expense  of  these  levies  by  local  taxation.*  The  parishes  were 
required  to  keep  bloodhounds  for  the  purpose  of  hunting  the  free- 
booters. Many  old  men  who  were  living  in  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth-  century  could  well  remember  the  time  when  those 
ferocious  dogs  were  common.f  Yet,  even  with  such  auxiliaries, 
it  was  often  found  impossible  to  track  the  robbers  to  their 
retreats  among  the  hills  and  morasses.  For  the  geography  of 
that  wild  country  was  very  imperfectly  known.  Even  after 
the  accession  of  George  the  Third,  the  path  over  the  fells  from 
Borrowdale  to  Ravenglas  was  still  a  secret  carefully  kept  by 
the  dalesmen,  some  of  whom  had  probably  in  their  youth 
escaped  from  the  pursu't  of  justice  by  that  road.J  The  seats 
of  the  gentry  and  the  larger  farmhouses  were  fortified.  Oxen 
were  peimed  at  night  beneath  the  overhanging  battlements  of 
the  residence,  which  was  known  by  the  name  of  the  Peel. 
The  inmates  slept  with  arms  at  their  sides.  Huge  stones  and 
boiling  water  were  in  readiness  to  crush  and  scald  the  plunderer 
who  might  venture  to  assail  the  little  garrison.  No  traveller 
■ventured   into    that   country    without   making    his    will.     The 

*  statutes  U  Car.  II.  c.  22.;  18  &  19  Car.  II.  c.  3.  ;  29  &  30  Car.  II.  c.  2. 

t  Nichol-:on  and  Boiinie,  Discourse  on  the  Ancient  State  of  tlje  Border,  X777» 

t  Gray'8  JouniaJ  of  a  Tom  in  tbe  Lakes,  Oct.  3, 1769, 


STATE    OP    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  263 

Judges  on  circuit,  with  the  whole  body  of  barristers,  attorneys, 
clerks,  and  serving  rnen,  rode  on  horseback  from  Newcastle  to 
Carlisle,  armed  and  escorted  by  a  strong  guard  under  the 
command  of  the  Sheriffs.  It  was  necessary  to  carry  j)rovisions ; 
for  the  country  was  a  wilderness  which  afforded  no  supplies. 
The  spot  where  the  cavalcade  halted  to  dine,  under  an  immense 
oak,  is  not  yet  forgotten.  The  irregular  vigour  with  which 
criminal  justice  was  administered  shocked  observers  whose  lives 
had  been  passed  in  more  tranquil  districts.  Juries,  animated 
by  hatred  and  by  a  sense  of  common  danger,  convicted  liouse- 
breakers  and  cattle  stealers  with  the  promptitude  of  a  court 
martial  in  a  mutiny  ;  and  the  convicts  were  hurried  by  scores 
to  the  gallows.*  Within  the  memory  of  some  whom  this  gen- 
eration has  seen,  the  sportsman  who  wandered  in  pursuit  of 
game  to  the  sources  of  the  Tyne  found  the  heaths  round  Keel- 
dar  Castle  peopled  by  a  race  scarcely  less  savage  than  the 
Indians  of  California,  and  heard  with  surprise  the  half  naked 
women  chaunting  a  wild  measure,  while  the  men  with  brandished 
dirks  danced  a  war  dance. t 

Slowly  and  with  difficulty  peace  was  established  on  the 
border.  In  the  train  of  peace  came  industry  and  all  the  arts 
of  life.  Meanwhile  it  was  discovered  that  the  regions  north 
of  the  Trent  possessed  in  their  coal  beds  a  source  of  wealth  far 
more  precious  than  the  gold  mines  of  Peru.  It  was  found  that, 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  these  beds,  almost  every  manufacture 
might  be  most  profitably  carried  on.  A  constant  stream  of 
emigrants  began  to  roll  northward.  It  appeared  by  the  returns 
of  1841  that  the  ancient  archiepiscopal  province  of  York  con- 
tained two-sevenths  of  the  population  of  England.  At  the 
time  of  the  Revolution  that  province  was  believed  to  contain 
only  one  seventh  of  the  population  $  In  Lancashire  the 
number  of  inhabitants  appear  to  have  increased  ninefold,  while 

*  North's  Life  of  Guildford  ;  Hutchinson's  History  of  Cumberland,  Parish  of 
Brampton. 

t  See  Sir  Walter  Scott's  Journal,  Oct.  7,  1827,  in  his  Life  by  Mr.  Lockhart. 

%  Dalrymple,  Appendix  to  Part  II.  Book  I.  The  r^etuins  of  the  hearth  money 
lead  to  nearly  the  same  conclusion.  The  hearths  in  the  province  of  York  were 
not  a  sixth  of  the  hearths  of  England. 


^CA  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

in    Norfolk,    Suffolk,    and    Northamptonshire    it    has    hardly 
doubled.* 

Of  the  taxation  we  can  speak  with  more  confidence  and  pre- 
cision than  of  the  population.  The  revenue  of  England,  when 
Charles  the  Second  died,  was  small,  when  compared  with  the 
resources  which  she  even  then  possessed,  or  with  the  sums  which 
were  raised  by  the  governments  of  the  neighbouring  countries. 
It  had,  from  the  time  of  the  Restoration,  been  almost  constantly 
increasing :  yet  it  was  little  more  than  tliree  fourths  of  the 
revenue  of  the  United  Provinces,  and  was  hardly  one  fiftli  of 
the  revenue  of  France. 

The  most  important  head  of  receipt  was  the  excise,  which, 
in  the  last  year  of  the  reign  of  Charles,  produced  five  hundred 
and  eighty-five  thousand  pounds,  clear  of  all  deductions.  Tlie 
net  proceeds  of  the  customs  amounted  in  the  same  year  to  five 
hundred  and  thirty  thousand  pounds.  These  burdens  did  not 
lie  very  heavy  on  the  nation.  The  tax  on  chimneys,  though 
less  productive,  call  forth  far  louder  murmurs.  The  discontent 
excited  by  direct  imposts  is,  indeed,  almost  always  out  of  pro- 
portion to  the  quantity  of  money  which  they  bring  into  the  Ex- 
chequer; and  the  tax  on  chimneys  was,  even  among  direct  im- 
posts, peculiarly  odious  :  for  it  could  be  levied  only  by  means 
of  domiciliary  visits  ;  and  of  such  visits  the  English  have  always 
been  impatient  to  a  degree  which  the  people  of  other  countries 
can  but  faintly  conceive.  The  poorer  householders  were  fre- 
quently unable  to  pay  their  hearth  money  to  the  day.  When 
this  happened,  their  furniture  was  distrained  without  mercy 
for  the  tax  was  farmed  ;  and  a  farmer  of  taxes  is,  of  all  credit- 
ors, proverbially  the  most  rapacious.  The  collectors  were  loudly 
accused  of  performing  their  unpopular  duty  with  harshness  and 
insolence.  It  was  said  that,  as  soon  as  they  appeared  at  the 
threshold  of  a  cottage,  the  children  began  to  wail,  and  the  old 
women  ran  to  hide  their  earthenware.     Nay,  the  single  bed  of  a 

*  I  do  not,  of  course,  pretend  to  strict  accuracy  here  ;  but  I  believe  that  who- 
ever ■will  take  the  trouble  to  compare  the  last  returns  of  hearth  money  in  the 
reigu  of  "William  the  Third  with  the  census  of  1841,  will  come  to  a  conclusion 
not  very  different  from  mine. 


BTATB   OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  265 

poor  family  had  sometimes  been  carried  away  and  sold.  The 
net  annual  receipt  from  this  tax  was  two  hundred  thousand 
pounds.* 

When  to  the  three  great  sources  of  income  which  have  been 
mentioned  we  add  the  royal  domains,  then  far  more  extensive 
than  at  present,  the  tirst  fruits  and  tenths,  which  had  not  yet 
been  surrendered  to  the  Church,  the  Duchies  of  Cornwall  and 
Lancaster,  the  forfeitures,  and  the  lines,  we  sluiil  find  that  the 
whole  annual  revenue  of  the  crown  may  be  fairly  estimated  at 
about  fourteen  hundred  thousand  pounds.  Of  this  revenue  part 
was  hereditary  ;  the  rest  had  been  granted  to  Charles  for  life  ; 
and  he  was  at  liberty  to  lay  out  the  whole  exactly  as  he  thought 
fit.  Whatever  he  could  save  by  retrenching  from  the  expend- 
iture of  the  public  dejiartments  was  an  addition  to  his  privy 
purse.  Of  the  Post  Office  more  will  hereafter  be  said.  The 
profits  of  that  establishment  had  been  appropriated  by  Parliament 
to  the  Duke  of  York. 

The  King's  revenue  was,  or  rather  ought  to  have  been, 
charged  with  the  payment  of  about  eighty  thousand  pounds  a 
year,  the  interest  of  the  sum  fraudulently  detained  in  the  Ex- 
chequer by  the  Cabal.  While  Danby  was  at  the  head  of  the 
finances,  the  creditors  had  received  dividends,  though  not  with 
the  strict  jiuuctuality  of  modern  times  :  but  those  who  had  suc- 

*  There  are  in  the  Pepysian  Library  some  ballads  of  that  age  on  the  chimney 
mouey.    I  will  give  a  specimen  or  two : — 

"  The  good  old  dames,  vhencvcr  they  the  chimney  man  espied, 
tinto  their  noolis  they  iiasfe  awny,  their  xiota  and  pipkins  hide. 
There  is  notone  old  aanie  in  tciT,  and  searcli  the  nation  through. 
Buti  if  j'ou  tal^  of  chimney  iiicu,  will  spore  a  curse  or  two." 

Again; 

"  Li^e  plunderlna;  eoldiers  they'd  enter  the  door, 
And  make  a  distress  on  the  goodw  of  the  poor. 
While  frighted  poor  children  distractedly  cried  i 
This  nothing  abated  their  insolent  pride"." 

In  the  British  IMuseum  there  are  doggrel  verses  composed  on  the  same  subject 
*nd  in  the  same  spirit : 

"  Or,  If  throuch  poverty  it  lie  not  paid 

For  cruelty  to  tear'away  the  single  bed, 

On  which  the  poor  man  rests  his  weary  head. 

At  once  deprives  him  of  his  rest  and  Bread." 

ItaTvethisopportun-Hy,  the  first  which  occiirs,  of  acknowledging  most  gratefully 
the  kind  and  H'k^:;!!  muuncr  in  which  the  Mastr^r  and  Vicemaster  of  Magdalena 
College,  Cambridge,  gav<*  me  access  to  the  valuable  collections  of  Pepys. 


266  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

ceeded  him  at  the  treasury  had  been  less  expert,  or  less  solicit- 
ous to  maintain  public  faith.  Since  the  victory  won  by  the 
court  over  the  Whigs,  not  a  farthhig  had  been  paid  ;  and  no 
redress  was  granted  to  the  sufferers,  till  a  new  dynasty  had 
been  many  years  on  the  throne.  There  can  be  no  greater  error 
than  to  imagine  that  the  device  of  meeting  the  exigencies  of  tlie 
state  by  loans  was  imported  into  our  island  by  William  the 
Third.  AVhat  really  dates  from  his  reign  is  not  the  system  of 
borrowing,  but  the  system  of  funding.  Frotn  a  period  of  im- 
memorable  antiquity  it  had  been  the  practice  of  every  English 
fifovernment  to  contract  debts.  What  the  Revolution  introduced 
was  the  practice  of  honestly  paying  them.* 

By  plundering  the  public  creditor,  it  was  possible  to  make 
an  income  of  about  fourteen  hiuidrod  thousand  pounds,  with 
some  occasional  help  from  Versailles,  support  the  necessary 
charges  of  the  government  nnd  tho  wasteful  expenditure  of  the 
court.  For  that  load  which  pressed  most  heavily  on  the  finances 
of  the  great  continental  states  was  here  scarcely  felt.  In 
France,  Germany,  and  the  Netherlands,  armies,  such  as  Henry 
the  Fourth  and  Philip  the  Second  had  never  emplo3'ed  in  time 
of  war,  were  kept  up  in  the  midst  of  peace.  Bastions  and 
ravelins  were  everywhere  rising,  constructed  on  principles 
unknown  to  Parma  and  Spinola.  Stores  of  artillery  and  ammu- 
nition were  accumulated,  sucli  as  even  Richelieu,  whom  the 
preceding  generation  had  regarded  as  a  worker  of  prodigies, 
would  have  pronounced  fabulous.  No  man  could  journey  many 
leagues  in  those  countries  without  hearing  the  drums  of  a  regi- 
ment on  march,  or  being  challenged  by  the  sentinels  on  the 
drawbridge  of  a  fortress.  In  our  island,  on  the  contrary,  it  was 
possible  to  live  long  and  to  travel  far  without  being  once 
reminded,  by  any  martial  sight  or  sound,  that  the  defence  of 
nations  had  become  a  science  and  a  calling.  The  majority  of 
Englishmen  who  were  under  twenty-five  years  of  age  had  prob- 
ably never  seen  a  company  of  regular  soldiers.  Of  the  cities 
which,  in  the  civil  war,  had  valiantly  repelled  hostile  armies, 

•  My  chief  autlionties  for  this  finaiicial  statemeut  will  ba  found  in  the  Conv 
tnons'  Journal,  March  1,  aad  Maivh  20,  I6ff 


STATE    OP   ENGLAND    IN    1685.  207* 

scarcely  one  was  now  capable  of  sustaining  a  siege.  The  gates 
stood  open  night  and  day.  The  ditches  were  dry.  The  ram- 
parts had  been  suffered  to  fall  into  decay,  or  were  repaired  only 
that  the  townsfolk  might  have  a  pleasant  walk  on  summer 
evenings.  Of  the  old  baronial  keeps  many  had  been  shattered 
by  the  cannon  of  Fairfax  and  Cromwell,  and  lay  in  heaps  of 
ruin,  overo-rown  with  ivy.  Those  which  remained  had  lost  their 
martial  character,  and  were  now  rural  palaces  of  the  aristocracy. 
The  moats  were  turned  into  preserves  of  carp  and  pike.  Th^ 
mounds  were  planted  with  fragrant  shrubs,  through  which 
spiral  walks  ran  up  to  summer  houses  adorned  with  mirrors  and 
paintings.*  On  the  capes  of  the  sea  coast,  and  on  many  inland 
hills,  were  still  seen  tall  posts,  surmounted  by  barrels.  Once 
those  barrels  had  been  filled  with  pitch.  Watchmen  had  been 
set  round  them  in  seasons  of  danger  ;  and,  within  a  few  hours 
after  a  Spanish  sail  had  been  discovered  in  the  Channel,  or  after 
a  thousand  Scottish  mosstroopers  had  crossed  the  Tweed,  the 
signal  fires  were  blazing  fifty  miles  off,  and  whole  counties 
were  rising  in  arms.  But  many  years  had  now  elapsed  since 
the  beacons  had  been  lighted  ;  and  they  were  regarded  rather 
as  curious  relics  of  ancient  manners  than  as  parts  of  a  machinery 
necessary  to  the  safety  of  the  state. f 

The  only  army  which  the  law  recognised  was  the  militia. 
That  force  had  been  remodelled  by  two  Acts  of  Parliament, 
passed  shortly  after  the  Restoration.  Every  man  who  possessed 
five  hundred  pounds  a  year  derived  from  land,  or  six  thousand 
pounds  of  personal  estate,  was  bound  to  provide,  equip,  and  pay, 
at  his  own  charge,  one  horseman.  Every  man  who  had  fifty 
pounds  a  year  derived  from  land,  or  six  hundred  pounds  of 
personal  estate,  was  charged  in  like  manner  with  one  pikeman 
or  musketeer.  Smaller  proprietors  were  joined  together  in  a 
kind  of  society,  for  which  our  language  does  not  afford  a  special 
name,  but  which  an  Athenian  would  have  called  a  Synteleia ; 
and  each  society  was  required  to  furnish,  according  to  its  means, 

•  See,  for  example,  the  picture  of  the  mound  at  Marlborough,  in  Stukeley'a 
Xtinerarium  Curiosum. 

vChamberlayne's  State  of  England,  1684. 


iQS  ^  insTOlJi'    OF    KNGLANn. 

a  horse  soldier  or  a  foot  soldier.  The  whole  number  of  cavalry 
and  infantry  thus  maintained  was  popularly  estimated  at  a 
hundred  and  thirty  thousand  men.* 

The  King  was,  by  the  ancient  constitution  of  the  realm,  and 
by  the  recent  and  solemn  acknowledgment  of  both  Houses  of 
Parliament,  the  sole  Captain  General  of  this  large  force.  The 
Lords  Lieutenants  and  their  Dejmties  held  the  command  under 
him,  and  ap^jointed  meetings  for- drilling  and  inspection.  The 
tmie  occupied  by  such  meetings,  however,  was  not  to  exceed 
fourteen  days  in  one  year.  The  Justices  of  the  Peace  were 
authorized  to  inflict  severe  penalties  for  breaches  of  discipline. 
Of  the  ordinary  cost  no  part  was  paid  by  the  crown  :  but  when 
the  trainbands  were  called  out  against  an  enemy,  their  sub- 
sistence became  a  charge  on  the  general  revenue  of  the  state, 
and  they  were  subject  to  the  utmost  rigour  of  martial  law. 

There  were  those  who  looked  on  the  militia  with  no  friendly 
eye.  Men  who  had  travelled  much  on  the  Continent,  who  had 
marvelled  at  the  stern  precision  with  which  every  sentinel 
moved  and  spoke  in  the  citadels  built  by  Vauban,  who  had  seen 
the  mighty  armies  which  poured  along  all  tlie  roads  of  Germany 
to  chase  the  Ottoman  from  the  Gates  of  Vienna,  and  who  had 
been  dazzled  by  the  well  ordered  pomp  of  the  household  troops 
of  Lewis,  sneered  much  at  tire  way  in  which  the  jijeasants  of 
Devonshire  and  Yorkshire  marched  and  wheeled,  shouldered 
muskets  and  ported  pikes.  The  enemies  of  the  liberties  and 
relififion  of  En tjland  looked  with  aversion  on  a  force  which  couid 
not,  without  extreme  risk,  be  employed  against  those  liberties 
and  that  religion,  and  missed  no  opportunity  of  throwing  rid- 
icule on  the  rustic  soldiery. f     Enlightened  patr'ots,  when  they 

*  1.")  and  14  Car.  II.  c.  3  ;  15  Car.  II.  c.  -1.   Cbamberlayne's  State  of  Eiiglaml,  1684. 

t  Bryileii,  in  his  Cymon  and  Iphigeiiia,  expressed,  with  his  usual  keeiine^^s  and 
energy,  tlie  sentiments  wliicli  had  been  fashionable  among  the  sycophants  of 
James  the  Second  : — 

"  The  country  ring^  a  o  iiul  witli  loud  alarms, 
And  raw  in  fields  the  rude  miiitia  swarms  ; 
Mouths  without  hands,  niaint. lined  nt  v.ist  expense, 
In  peace  a.char?:e.  in  war  a  weak  defence. 
Stout  once  a  montli  they  rmrch.  a  blustering'  hand, 
And  ever,  but  in  time  of  need,  at  hand. 
This  "was  the  morn  when,  issuing  on  the  ji"uard. 
Drawn  up  in  rank  and  file,  tluy'stood  prepared 
of  seeming  arms  to  make  a  sliort  essay. 
Then  hasten  to  be  drunk,  the  business  ol  the  day." 


STATE    OP   ENGLAND    IN    1G85.  ^GO 

contrasted  these  rude  levies  with  the  battalions  -which,  in  time 
of  war,  a  few  hours  might  bring  to  the  coast  of  Kent  or  Sussex, 
were  forced  to  acknowledge  that,  dangerous  as  it  might  ba  tff 
keep  up  a  permanent  military  establishment,  it  might  be  more 
dangerous  still  to  stake  the  honour  and  independence  of  the 
country  on  the  result  of  a  contest  between  plowmen  officered  by 
Justices  of  the  Peace,  and  A-eteran  warriors  led  by  Marshals  of 
France.     la  Parliament,  however,  it  was  necessary  to  express 
such  opinions  with  some  reserve  ;  for  the  militia  was  an  institu- 
tion eminently  popular.     Every  reflection  thrown  on  it  excited 
the  indignatioi\  of  both  the  great  parties  in  the  state,  and  espe- 
cially of  that  party  which  was  distinguished  by  peculiar  zeal  for 
monarchy  and  for  the   Anglican    Church.     The  array  of  tha 
counties  was  commanded  almost  exclusively  by  Tory  noblemen 
and  gentlemen.     They  were  proud  of  their  military  rank,  and 
considered  an  insult  offered  to  the  service  to  which  they  be- 
longed as  offered  to  themselves.      They  were  also   perfectly 
aware  that   whatever  was  said  against  a  militia  was   said  in 
favour  of  a  standing  array ;  and  the  name  of  standing  army  was 
hateful  to  them.     One  such  army  had  held  dominion  in  Eng- 
land ;  and  under  that  dominion  the  King  had  been  murdered, 
the  nobility  degraded,  the  landed  gentry  plundered,  the  Church 
persecuted.     There  was  scarcely  a  rural  grandee  who  could  not 
tell  a  story  of  wrongs  and  insults  suffered  by  himself,  or  by  his 
father,  at  the  hands  of  the  parliamentary  soldiers.     One   old 
Cavalier  had  seen  half  his  manor  house  blown  up.     The  hered- 
itary elms  of  another  had  been  hewn  down.     A  third  could 
never  go  into  his  parish  church  without  being  reminded  by  tha 
defaced  scutcheons  and  headless  statues  of  his  ancestry,  that 
Oliver's  redcoats  had  once  stabled   their  horses  there.     Tha 
consequence  was  that  those  very  Royalists,  who   were   most 
ready  to  fight  for  the  King  themselves,  were  the  last  persons 
whom  ha  could  venture  to  ask  for  tha  means  of  hiring  regular 
troops. 

Charles,  however,  had,  a  fevr  months  after  his  restoration, 
begun  to  form  a  small  standing  army.  He  felt  that,  without 
Bome  better  protection  than  that  of  tha  trainbands  and  beel" 


270  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

eaters,  his  palace  and  person  would  hardly  be  secure,  in  the 
vicinity  of  a  gi'eat  city  swai'miug  with  warlike  Fifth  Monarchy 
men  who  had  just  been  disbanded.  He  therefore,  careless  and 
profuse  as  he  was,  contrived  to  spare  from  his  pleasures  a  sum 
sufficient  to  keep  up  a  body  of  guards.  With  the  increase  of 
trade  and  of  public  wealth  his  revenues  increased ;  and  he  was 
thus  enabled,  in  spite  of  the  occasional  murmurs  of  the  Com- 
mons, to  make  gradual  additions  to  his  regular  forces.  One 
considerable  addition  was  made  a  few  months  before  the  close 
of  his  reign.  The  costly,  useless,  and  pestilential  settlement  of 
Tangier  was  abandoned  to  the  barbarians  who  chvelt  around  it ; 
and  the  garrison,  consisting  of  one  regiment  of  horse  and  two 
regiments  of  foot,  was  brought  to  England. 

The  little  army  formed  by  Charles  the  Second  was  the  germ 
o^  that  great  and  renowned  army  which  has,  in  the  present  cen- 
tury, marched  triumphant  into  Madrid  and  Paris,  into  Canton 
and  Candahar.  The  Life  Guards,  who  now  form  two  regiments, 
were  then  distributed  into  three  troops,  each  of  which  consisted 
of  two  hundred  carabineers,  exclusive  of  officers.  This  corps, 
to  which  thb  safety  of  the  King  and  royal^family  was  confided, 
had  a  very  peculiar  character.  Even  the  privates  were  desig- 
nated as  gentlemen  of  the  Guard.  Many  of  them  were  of  good 
families,  and  had  held  commissions  in  the  civil  war.  Their  pay 
was  far  higher  than  that  of  tne  most  favoured  regiment  of  our 
time,  and  would  in  that  age  have  been  thought  a  respectable 
provision  for  the  younger  son  of  a  country  squire.  Their  fine 
horses,  their  rich  housings,  their  cuirasses,  and  their  buff  coats 
adorned  with  riban'  velvet,  and  gold  lace,  made  a  splendid 
appearance  in  Saint  James's  Park.  A  small  body  of  grenadier 
dragoons,  who  came  from  a  lower  class  and  received  lower  pay, 
was  attached  to  each  troop.  Another  body  of  household  cav- 
alry distinguished  by  blue  coats  and  cloaks,  and  still  called  the 
Blues,  was  generally  quartered  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  cap- 
ital. Near  the  capital  lay  also  he  corps  which  is  now  desig- 
nated as  the  first  regnneut  of  di-aguous,  but  whh'h  ,va^5  Caen, 
the  only  regiment  of  dragoons  on  the  English  establisliment. 
It  had  I'ecently  been  formed  out  of  the  cavalry  which  had 
l:ettu-ned  from  Tangier.      A  single  troop  of  dragoons,   whicb 


STATE    OF   ENGLAND   IN    1685.  271 

uid  not  form  part  of  any  regiment,  was  stationed  near  Berwick, 
for  the  purpose  of  keeping  the  peace  among  the  mosstroopers 
of  the  borcier.  For  this  species  of  service  the  dragoon  was 
then  thought  to  be  peculiarly  qualified.  He  bus  since  become 
a  mere  horse  soldier.  But  in  the  seventeenth  century  he  was 
accurately  described  by  MontecucuH  as  a  foot  soldier  who  used 
ft  horse  only  in  order  to  arrive  with  more  speed  at  the  place 
irlic^ro  milit;>,ry  service  was  to  be  performecJ. 

The  household  infantry  consisted  of  two  regiments,  which 
were  then,  as  now,  called  the  first  regiment  of  Foot  Guards,  and 
the  Coldstream  Guards.  They  generally  did  duty  near  White- 
hall and  Saint  James's  Palace.  As  there  were  then  no  barracks, 
and  as,  by  the  Petition  of  Right,  It  had  been  declared  unlawful 
to  quarter  soldiers  on  private  families,  the  redcoats  filled  all  the 
alehouses  of  Westminster  and  the  Strand. 

There  were  five  other  regiments  of  foot.  One  of  these, 
called  the  Admiral's  Regiment,  was  especially  destined  to  service 
on  board  of  the  fleet.  The  remaining  four  still  rank  as  the  first 
four  regiments  of  the  line.  Two  of  these  represented  two 
brigades  which  had  long  sustained  on  the  Continent  the  fame  of 
British  valour.  The  first,  or  Royal  regiment,  had,  under  the 
great  Gustavus,  borne  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  deliverance 
of  Germany.  The  third  regiment,  distinguished  by  fleshcoloured 
facings,  from  which  it  had  derived  the  well  known  name  of 
the  Buffs,  had,  under  Maurice  of  Nassau,  fought  not  less  bravely 
for  the  deliverance  of  the  Netherlands.  Both  these  gallant 
bands  had  at  length,  after  many  vicissitudes,  been  recalled  from 
foreign  service  by  Charles  the  econd,  and  had  been  placed  on 
the  English  establishment. 

The  regiments  which  now  r  ,  "-  as  the  second  and  fourth  of 
the  line  had,  in  1685,  just  returned  from  Tangier,  bringing  with 
them  cruel  and  licentious  habits  contracted  in  a  long  course  of 
warfare  with  the  Moors.  A  few  companies  of  infantry  which 
had  not  been  regimented  lay  in  garrison  at  Tilbury  Fort,  at 
Portsmouth,  at  Plymouth,  and  at  3omc  other  important  stations 
<jn  or  near  'he  coast. 

Since  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  a  great  change 


272  HISTORY    OF    KNGLANU. 

had  taken  place  in  the  arms  of  the  infantry.  The  pike  had 
been  gradually  giving  place  to  the  muskcfc  ;  and,  at  the  close  of 
the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  most  of  his  foot  -v^ere  muske- 
teers. Still,  however,  there  was  a  large  intermixture  of  pike- 
men.  Each  class  of  troops  was  occasionally  instructed  in  the 
use  of  the  weapon  which  peculiarly  belonged  to  the  other  class. 
Every  foot  soldier  had  at  his  side  a  sword  for  close  fight.  The 
musketeer  was  generally  provided  with  a  weapon  which  had, 
during  many  years,  been  gradually  coming  into  use,  and  wliich 
the  English  then  called  a  dagger,  but  which,  from  the  time  of 
William  the  Third,  has  been  known  among  us  by  the  French 
name  of  bayonet.  The  ba3'onet  seems  not  to  have  been  then  so 
formidable  an  instrument  of  destruction  as  it  has  since  become  ; 
for  it  was  inserted  in  the  muzzle  of  the  gun  ;  and  in  action  muoli 
time  was  lost  while  the  soldier  unfixed  his  bayonet  in  order  to 
lire,  and  fixed  it  again  in  order  to  chai-ge.  The  dragoon,  when 
dismounted,  fought  as  a  musketeer. 

The  regular  army  which  was  kept  up  in  England  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  year  1685  consisted,  all  ranks  included,  of  about 
seven  thousand  foot,  and  about  seventeen  hundred  cavalry  and 
drasfoons.  The  whole  charsre  amounted  to  about  two  hundred 
and  ninety  thousand  pounds  a  year,  less  then  a  tenth  part 
of  what  the  military  establishment  of  France  then  cost  in  time 
of  peace.  The  daily  pay  of  a  private  in  tlie  Life  Guards  was 
four  shillings,  in  the  Blues  two  shillings  and  sixpence,  in  the 
Dragoons  eighteen  pence,  in  the  Foot  Guards  tenpence,  and  in 
the  line  eightpence.  The  discipline  was  lax,  and  indeed  could 
not  be  otherwise.  The  common  law  of  England  knew  nothing 
of  courts  martial,  and  made  no  distinction,  in  time  of  peace,  be- 
tween a  soldier  and  any  other  subject  ;  nor  could  the  govern- 
ment then  venture  to  ask  even  the  most  loyal  Parliament  for  a 
Mutiny  Bill.  A  soldier,  therefore,  by  knocking  down  his 
colonel,  incurred  only  the  ordinary  penalties  of  assault  and  bat- 
tery, and  by  refusing  to  obey  orders,  by  sleeping  on  guard,  or 
by  deserting  his  colours,  incurred  no  legal  penalty  at  all.  Mili- 
tary punishments  were  doubtless  inflicted  during  the  reign  of 
Charles  the  Second  j  but  they  were  inflicted  very  sparingly,  and 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  273 

in  such  a  manner  as  not   to   attract  public  notice,  or  to  jjroduce 
an  wppeal  to  the  courts  of  Westminster  Hall. 

Such  an  army  as  has  been  described  was  not  very  likely  to 
enslave  five  millions  of  Englishmen.  It  would  indeed  have 
been  unable  to  suppress  an  insurrection  in  London,  if  the  train- 
bands of  ihe  City  had  joined  the  insurgents.  Nor  could  the 
King  expect  that,  if  a  rising  took  place  in  England,  he  would 
obtain  effectual  help  from  his  other  dominions.  For,  though 
both  Scotland  ^nd  Ireland  supported  separate  military  estab- 
lishments, those  establishments  were  not  more  than  sufficient  to 
keep  down  the  Puritan  malecontents  of  the  former  king-- 
dom  and  the  Popisn  malecontents  of  the  latter.  The  gov- 
ernment had,  howevei,  an  important  military  resource  which 
must  not  be  left  unnoticed.  There  were  in  the  pay  of  the 
United  Provinces  six  fine  r'egiments,  of  which  three  had  been 
raised  in  England  and  three  ^li  Scotland.  Their  native  prince 
had  reserved  to  himself  the  power  of  recalling  tliem,  if  he 
needed  their  help  against  a  foreign  or  domestic  enemy.  In  the 
meantime  they  were  maintained  -s^jithout  any  charge  to  him, 
and  were  kept  under  an  excellent  discipline,  to  which  he  could 
not  have  ventured  to  subject  them.* 

If  the  jealousy  of  the  Parliament  and  of  the  nation  made 
it  impossible  for  the  King  to  maintain  a  formidable  standing  - 
army,  no  similar  impediment  prevented  him  from  making  Eng-  | 
land  the  first  of  maritime  powers.  Both  Whigs  and  Tories 
were  ready  to  applaud  every  step  tending  to  increase  the  effi- 
ciency of  that  force  which,  while  it  was  the  best  protection  of 
the  island  against  foreign  enemies,  was  powerless  against  civil 
liberty.  All  the  greatest  exploits  achieved  within  the  memory 
of  that  generation  by  English  soldiers  had  been  achieved  in 
'war  against  English  princes.  The  victories  of  our  sailors  had 
been  won  over  foreign  foes,  and  had  averted  havoc  and  rapine 

*  Most  of  the  materials  which  I  have  used  for  tliis  account  of  the  regular 
army  -will  he  found  in  the  Historical  Records  of  Regiments,  published  by  com- 
mand of  King  William  the  Fourth,  and  under  the  direction  of  the  Adjutant 
General.  See  also  Chamberlayne's  State  of  England,  1G81 ;  Abridgment  of  the 
English  Jlilitary  Discipline,  printed  by  especial  command,  1C85  ;  Exercise  of 
F'Ktt,  by  their  Majesties'  command,  1690. 

18 


274  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

from  our  own  soil.  By  at  least  half  the  nation  the  battle  of 
Naseby  was  remembered  with  horror,  and  the  battle  of  Dunbar 
with  pride  chequered  by  many  painful  feelings :  but  the  defeat 
of  the  Armada,  and  the  encounters  of  Blake  with  the  Holland- 
ers and  Spaniards  were  recollected  with  unmixed  exultation  by 
all  jiarties.  Ever  since  the  Restoration,  the  Commons,  even 
when  most  discontented  and  most  parsimonious,  had  always 
been  bountiful  to  profusion  where  the  Interest  of  the  navy  was 
concerned.  It  had  been  represented  to  them,  while  Danby  was 
minister,  that  many  of  the  vessels  in  the  royal  fleet  were  old 
and  unfit  for  sea ;  and,  although  the  House  was,  at  that  time, 
in  no  giving  mood,  an  aid  of  near  six  hundred  thousand  jjounds 
had  been  granted  for  the  building  of  thirty  new  men  of  war. 

But  the  liberality  of  the  nation  had  been  made  fruitless  by 
the  vices  of  the  government.  The  list  of  the  King's  ships,  it 
is  true,  looked  well.  There  were  nine  first  rates,  fourteen  sec- 
ond rates,  thirty-nine  third  rates,  and  many  smaller  vessels. 
The  first  rates,  indeed,  were  less  than  the  third  rates  of  oui 
time ;  and  the  third  rates  would  not  now  rank  as  very  large 
frigates.  This  force,  however,  if  it  had  been  efficient,  would 
in  those  days  have  been  regarded  by  the  greatest  potentate  as 
formidable.  But  it  existed  only  on  paper.  When  the  reign  of 
Charles  terminated,  his  navy  had  sunk  into  degradation  and 
decay,  such  as  would  be  almost  incredible  if  it  were  not  cer- 
tified to  us  by  the  independent  and  concurring  evidence  of  wit- 
nesses whose  authority  is  beyond  exception.  Pepys,  the  ablest 
man  in  the  English  Admiralty,  drew  up,  in  the  year  1 684,  a. 
memorial  on  the  state  of  his  department,  for  the  information  of 
Charles.  A  few  months  later  Bonrepaux,  the  ablest  man  in 
the  French  Admiralty,  having  visited  England  for  the  especial 
purpose  of  ascertaining  her  maritime  strength,  laid  the  result^ 
of  his  inquiries  before  Lewis.  The  two  reports  are  to  the  same 
effect.  Bonrepaux  declared  that  he  found  everything  in  dis- 
order and  in  miserable  condition,  that  the  superiority  of  the 
French  marine  was  acknowledged  with  shame  and  envy  at 
Whitehall,  and  that  the  state  of  our  shipping  and  dockyards 
was  of  itself  a  sufficient  guarantee  that  we  should  not  meddle  in 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  275 

the  disputes  of  Europe.*  Pepys  informed  Lis  master  that  the 
naval  administration  was  a  prodigy  of  wastefulness,  corruption, 
ignorance,  and  indolence,  that  no  estimate  could  be  trusted, 
that  no  contract  was  performed,  that  no  check  was  enforced. 
The  vessels  which  the  recent  liberality  of  Parliament  liad  en- 
abled the  government  to  build,  and  which  had  never  been  out 
of  harbour,  had  been  made  of  such  wretched  timber  that  they 
■vere  more  unfit  to  go  to  sea  than  the  old  hulls  which  had  been 
battered  thirty  years  before  by  Dutch  and  Spanish  broadsides. 
Some  of  the  new  men  of  war,  indeed,  were  so  rotten  that,  un- 
less speedily  repaired,  they  would  go  down  at  their  moorings. 
The  sailors  were  paid  with  so  little  punctuality  that  they  were 
glad  to  find  some  tisurer  who  would  purchase  their  tickets  at 
forty  per  cent,  discount.  The  commanders  who  had  not  power- 
ful friends  at  court  were,  even  worse  treated.  Some  oflScers,  to 
whom  large  arrears  were  due,  after  vainly  importuning  the  gov- 
ernment during  many  years,  had  died  for  want  of  a  morsel  of 
bread. 

Most  of  the  ships  which  were  afloat  were  commanded  by  men 
who  had  not  been  bred  to  the  sea.  This,  it  is  true,  was  not  an 
abuse  introduced  by  the  government  of  Charles.  No  state,  an- 
cient or  modern,  had,  before  that  time,  made  a  complete  separa 
lion  between  the  naval  and  military  service;.  In  the  great  civ- 
ilised nations  of  antiquity,  Cimon  and  Lysander,  Pompey  and 
Agrippa,  had  fought  battles  by  sea  as  well  as  by  land.  Nor  had 
the  impulse  which  nautical  science  received  at  the  close  of 
the  fifteenth  century  produced  any  new  division  of  labour. 
At  Flodden  the  right  wing  of  the  victorious  army  was  led  by 
the  Admiral  of  England.  At  Jarnac  and  Moncontour  the 
Huguenot  ranks  were  marshalled  by  the  Admiral  of  France. 
Neither  John  of  Austria,  the  conqueror   of  Lepanto,   nor  Lord 

g 
*  I  refer  to  a  despatch  of  Bonrepaux  to  Seignelay,  dated  Feb.  T"g^.  1686.  It  waa 

transcribed  for  Mr.  Fox  from  the  French  archives,  during  the  peace  of  Amiens, 
and,  with  the  other  materials  brought  together  by  tliat  great  man,  was  entrusted 
to  me  by  the  kindness  of  the  late  Lady  Holland,  and  of  the  present  Lord  Hol- 
land. I  ought  to  add  that,  even  in  the  midst  of  the  troubles  which  have  lately 
agitated  Paris,  T  found  no  difficulty  in  obtaining,  from  the  liberality  of  the  func- 
Uouaries  there,  exU'acts  supplying  some  chasms  in  Mr.  Fox's  collection.   (1848.) 


? 


276  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

Howard  of  Effingham,  to  whose  direction  the  marhie  of  Kngland 
was  confided  when  the  Spanish  invaders  were  approacliing  our 
shores,  had  received  the  education  of  a  sailor.  Raleigh,  highly 
celebrated  as  a  naval  commander,  had  served  during  many  years 
as  a  soldier  in  France,  the  Netherlands,  and  Ireland.  Blake  had 
distinguished  himself  by  his  skilful  and  valiant  defence  of  au 
inland  town  before  he  humbled  the  pride  of  Holland  and  of  Cas- 
tile on  the  ocean.  Since  the  Restoration  the  same  system  had 
been  followed.  Great  fleets  had  been  entrusted  to  the  direction 
of  Rupert  and  Monk  ;  Rupert,  who  was  renowned  chiefly  as  a 
hot  and  daring  cavalry  otHccr,  and  Monk,  Avho,  when  he  wished 
his  ship  to  change  her  course,  moved  the  mirth  of  his  crew  by 
calling  out,  "  AVheel  to  the  left  !  " 

But  about  this  time  wise  men  began  to  perceive  that  the 
rapid  improvement,  both  of  the  art  of  war  and  of  the  art  of  nav- 
igation, made  it  necessary  to  draw  a  line  between  two  profes- 
sions which  had  hitherto  been  confounded.  Either  the  command 
of 'a  regiment  or  the  command  of  a  sliij)  was  now  a  matter  quite 
sufficient  to  occupy  the  attention  of  a  single  mind.  In  the  year 
1672  the  French  government  determined  to  educate  young  men 
of  good  family  from  a  very  early  age  especially  for  the  sea  ser- 
vice. But  the  English  government,  instead  of  following  this 
excellent  exam])le,  not  only  continued  to  distribute  high  naval 
commands  among  landsmen,  but  selected  for  such  commands 
landsmen  who,  even  on  land,  could  not  safely  have  been  put  in 
"any  important  trust.  Any  lad  of  noble  birth,  any  dissolute 
courtier  for  whom  one  of  the  King's  mistresses  would  speak  a 
word,  might  hope  that  a  ship  of  the  line,  and  with  it  the  honour 
of  the  country  and  the  lives  of  hundreds  of  brave  men,  would 
be  committed  to  his  care.  It  mattered  not  that  he  had  never  in 
his  life  taken  a  voyage  except  on  the  Thames,  that  he  could  not 
keep  his  feet  in  a  breeze,  that  he  did  not  know  the  difference 
between  latitude  and  longitude.  No  previous  training  was 
thought  necessary  ;  or,  at  most,  he  was  sent  to  make  a  short 
trip  in  a  man  of  war,  where  he  was  subjected  to  no  discipline, 
where  he  was  treated  with  marked  respect,  and  where  he  lived 
in  a  round  of  revels  and  amusements,     If,  iu  the  intervals  of 


STATK  OP  KNOLAND  IN  1685.  277 

feasting,  drinking  and  gambling,  he  succeeded  in  learning  the 
meaning  of  a  few  technical  phrases  and  the  names  of  the  points 
of  the  compass,  he  was  thought  fully  qualified  to  take  charge  of 
a  three-decker.  This  is  no  imaginary  description.  In  1666, 
John  Sheffield,  Earl  of  Mulgrave,  at  seventeen  years  of  age,  vol- 
unteered to  serve  at  sea  against  the  Dutch.  He  passed  six 
weeks  on  board,  diverting  hmiself,  as  well  as  he  could,  in  tha 
society  of  some  young  libertines  of  rank,  and  then  returned 
Ijoine  to  take  the  command  of  a  troop  of  horse.  After  this  he 
was  never  on  the  water  till  the  year  1672,  when  he  again  joined 
the  fleet,  and  was  almost  immediately  appointed  Captain  of  a 
ship  of  eighty-four  guns,  reputed  the  finest  in  the  navy.  He 
was  then  twenty-three  years  old,  and  had  not,  in  the  whole 
course  of  his  life,  been  three  months  afloat.  As  soon  as  he  came 
back  from  sea  he  was  made  Colonel  of  a  regiment  of  foot. 
This  is  a  specimen  of  the  manner  in  which  naval  commands  ol 
the  highest  importance  were  then  given  ;  and  a  very  favour- 
able specimen  ;  for  Mulgrave,  though  he  wanted  experience, 
wanted  neither  parts  nor  courage.  Others  were  promoted  in  the 
same  way  who  not  only  were  not  good  officers,  but  who  were 
intellectually  and  morally  incapable  of  ever  becoming  good  offi- 
cers, and  whose  only  recommendation  was  that  they  had  been 
ruined  by  folly  and  vice.  The  chief  bait  which  allured  these 
men  into  the  service  was  the  profit  of  conveying  bullion  and 
other  valuable  commodities  from  .port  to  port ;  for  both  tha 
Atlantic  and  the  Mediterranean  were  then  so  much  infested  by 
pirates  from  Barbary  that  merchants  were  not  willing  to  trust 
precious  cargoes  to  any  custody  but  that  of  a  man  of  war.  A 
Captain  might  thus  clear  several  thousands  of  pounds  by  a  short 
voyage  ;  and  for  this  lucrative  business  he  too  often  neglected 
the  interests  of  his  country  and  the  honour  of  his  flasf,  made 
mean"  submissions  to  foreign  powers,  disobeyed  the  most  direct 
injunctions  of  his  superiors,  lay  in  port  when  he  was  ordered  to 
chase  a  Sallee  rover,  or  ran  with  dollars  to  Leghorn  when  his 
instructions  directed  him  to  repair  to  Lisbon.  And  all  this  ha 
did  with  impunity.  The  same  interest  which  had  placed  him  in  a 
jiost  for  which  he  was  unfit  maintained  him  there.  No  Admiral 


278  '       HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

bearded  by  these  corrupt  and  dissolute  minions  of  the  palace, 
dared  to  do  more  than  mutter  something  about  a  court  martial.  If 
any  officer  showed  a  higher  sense  of  duty  than  his  fellows,  he 
soon  found  that  he  lost  money  without  acquiring  honour.  One 
Captain,  who,  by  strictly  obeying  the  orders  of  The  Admirality, 
missed  a  cargo  which  would  have  been  worth  four  thousand 
pounds  to  him,  was  told  by  Charles,  with  ignoble  levity,  that  he 
was  a  great  fool  for  his  pains. 

The  discipline  of  the  navy  was  of  a  piece  throughout.  As 
the  courtley  Captain  despised  the  Admiralty,  he  was  in  turn 
despised  by  his  crew.  It  could  not  be  concealed  that  he  was 
inferior  in  seamanship  to  every  foremast  man  on  board.  It  was 
idle  to  expect  that  old  sailors,  familiar  with  the  hurricanes  of 
the  tropics  and  with  the  icebergs  of  the  Arctic  Circle,  would 
pay  prompt  and  respectful  obedience  to  a  chief  who  knev/  no 
more  of  winds  and  waves  than  could  be  learned  in  a  gilded 
barge  between  Whitehall  stairs  and  Hampton  Court.  To  trust 
such  a  novice  with  a  working  of  a  ship  was  evidently  impos 
sible.  The  direction  of  the  navigation  was  therefore  taken  from 
the  Captain  and  given  to  the  Master;  but  this  partition  of 
Authority  produced  innumerable  inconveniences.  The  line  of 
demarkation  was  not,  and  perhaps  could  not  be,  drawn  with  pre- 
cision. There  was  therefore  constant  wrangling.  The  Cap- 
tain, confident  in  j^roportion  to  his  ignorance,  treated  the 
Master  with  lordly  contempt.  The  Master  well  aware  of  the 
danger  of  disobliging  the  powerful,  too  often,  after  a  struggle, 
yielded  against  his  better  judgment ;  and  it  was  well  if  the  loss 
of  ship  and  crew  was  not  the  consequence.  In  general  the 
least  mischievous  of  the  aristoci-atical  Captains  were  those  who 
completely  abandoned  to  others  the  direction  of  the  vessels,  and 
thought  only  of  making  money  and  spending  it.  The  way  in 
which  these  men  lived  was  so  ostentacious  and  voluptuous  that, 
greedy  as  they  were  of  gain,  they  seldom  became  rich.  They 
dressed  as  if  for  a  gala  at  Versailles,  ate  off  plate,  drank  the 
richest  wines,  and  kept  harems  on  board,  while  hunger  and 
scurvy  raged  among  the  crews,  and  while  corpses  were  daily 
flung  out  of  the  portholes. 


STATE    OP    ENGLAND    IN    1685,  t79 

Such  was  the  ordinary  character  of  those  who  were  then 
called  gentlemen  Captains.  Hingled  with  them  were  to  be 
found,  happily  for  our  country,  naval  commanders  of  a  very 
different  description,  men  whose  whole  life  had  been  passed  oa 
the  deep,  and  who  had  worked  and  fought  their  way  from  the 
lowest  offices  of  the  forecastle  to  rank  and  distinction.  One  of  the 
most  eminent  of  these  officers  was  Sir  Christopher  Mings,  who 
entered  the  service  as  a  cabin  boy,  who  fell  fighting  bravely 
against  the  Dutch,  and  whom  his  crew,  weeping  and  vowing 
vengeance,  carried  to  the  grave.  From  him  sprang,  by  a  singu- 
lar kind  of  descent,  a  line  of  valiant  and  expert  sailors.  His 
cabin  boy  was  Sir  John  Narborough  ;  and  tho  cabin  boy  of  Sir 
John  Narborough  was  Sir  Cloudesley  Shovel.  To  the  strong 
natural  sense  and  dauntless  courage  of  this  class  of  men  Eng- 
land owes  a  debt  never  to  bo  forgotten.  It  was  by  such  reso- 
lute hearts  that,  in  spite  of  much  maladministration,  and  in 
spite  of  the  blunders  and  treasons  of  more  courtly  admirals,  our 
coasts  were  protected  and  the  reputation  of  our  flag  upheld  dur- 
ing many  gloomy  and  perilous  years.  But  to  a  landsman  these 
tarpaulins,  as  they  were  called,  seemed  a  strange  and  half 
savage  race.  Ail  their  knowledge  was  professional ;  and  their 
professional  knowledge  was  practical  rather  than  scientific.  Off 
their  own  element  they  were  as  simple  as  children.  Their  de- 
portment was  uncouth.  There  was  roughness  in  their  very 
good  nature  ;  and  their  talk,  where  it  was  not  made  up  of 
liautical  phrases,  was  too  commonly  made  up  of  oaths  and 
curses.  Such  were  the  chiefs  in  whose  rude  school  were  formed 
those  sturdy  warriors  from  whom  Smollett,  in  the  next  age, 
drew  Lieutenant  Bowling  and  Commodore  Trunnion.  But  it 
does  not  appear  that  there  was  in  the  service  of  any  of  the 
Stuarts  a  single  naval  officer  such  as,  according  to  the  notions 
of  our  times,  a  naval  officer  ought  to  be,  that  is  to  say,  a  man 
versed  in  the  theory  and  practice  of  his  calling,  and  steeled 
against  all  the  dangers  of  battle  and  tempest,  yet  of  cultivated 
mind  and  polished  manners.  There  were  gentlemen  and  there 
were  seamen  in  the  navy  of  Charles  the  Second.  But  the  sea- 
men were  not  gentlemen ;  and  the  gentlemen  were  not  seamen. 


2S0  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

The  English  navy  at  that  time  might,  according  to  the  most 
exact  estimates  which  have  come  dow^n  to  us,  have  been  kept  in 
an  efficient  state  for  three  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  pounds 
a  year.  Four  hundred  thousand  pounds  a  year  was  the 
sum  actually  expended,  but  e:;pended,  as  we  have  seen,  to 
very  little  purpose.  The  cost  of  the  French  marine  was  nearly 
the  same ;  the  cost  of  the  Dutch  marine  considerably  more.* 

The  charge  of  the  English  ordnance  in  the  seventeenth  cen^ 
tury  was,  as  compared  with  other  military  and  naval  charges, 
much  smaller  than  at  present.  At  most  of  the  garrisons  there 
were  gunners ;  and  here  and  there,  at  an  important  post,  an  en- 
gineer was  to  be  found.  But  there  was  no  regiment  of  artillery, 
no  brigade  of  sappers  and  minei's,,no  college  in  which  young 
soldiers  could  learn  the  sci  itific  part  of  the  art  of  war.  The 
difficulty  of  moving  fijld  pieces  was  extreme.  When,  a  few 
years  later,  William  marched  from  Devonshire  to  London,  the 
apparatus  which  he  brought  with  him,  though  such  as  had  long 
been  in  constant  use  on  the  Continent,  and  such  as  would  now 
be  regarded  at  Woolwich  as  rude  and  cumbrous,  excited  in  our 
ancestors  an  admiration  resembling  that  which  the  Indians  of 
America  felt  for  the  Castilian  harquebusses.  The  stock  of  gun- 
powder kept  in  the  English  forts  and  arsenals  was  boastfully 
mentioned  by  patriotic  writers  as  something  which  might  well 
impress  neighbouring.nations  with  awe.  It  amounted  to  fourteen 
or  fifteen  thousand  barrels,  about  a  twelfth  of  the  quantity 
which  it  is  now  thought  necessary  to  have  in  store.  The  expen- 
diture under  the  head  of  ordnance  was  on  an  averasre  a  little 
above  sixty  thousand  pounds  a  year.f 

*  My  information  respecting  the  condition  of  tlie  navy,  at  this  time,  is  cliiefly 
derived  from  Pepys.  His  report,  presented  to  Charles  the  Second  in  May,  1684, 
has  never,  I  believe,  been  printed.  The  manuscript  is  at  Magdalene  College, 
Cambridge.  At  Magdalene  College  is  also  a  valuable  mdnuseript  containing  a 
detailed  account  of  the  maritime  establishments  of  the  country  in  December, 
1G84.  Pepys's  "  Memoirs  relating  to  the  State  of  the  Royal  Navy  for  Ten  Years, 
determined  December,  1688,"  and  his  diary  and  correspondence  during  his  mis- 
sion to  Tangier,  are  in  print.  I  have  made  large  use  of  them.  See  also  Shef- 
field's Memoirs,  Teonge's  Diary,  Aubrey's  Lite  of  Monk,  the  Life  of  Sir  Cloudes- 
ley  Shovel,  1708,  Commons'  flournals,  March  1  and  March  20, 168ti-9. 

Cbamberlayiie's  State  of  England,  1684  ;  Commons'  Journals,  March  1,  and 


STATE  OF  ENGLAND  IN  1685.  281 

The  whole  effective  cliurge  of  the  armj-,  navy,  and  ordnance, 
was  about  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  pounds.  The  non- 
effective charge,  which  is  now  a  heavy  part  of  our  public  bur- 
dens, can  hardly  be  said  to  have  existed.  A  very  small  number 
of  naval  officers,  who  were  not  employed  in  the  public  service, 
drew  half  pay.  No  Lieutenant  was  on  the  list,  nor  any  Captain 
who  had  not  commanded  a  ship  of  the  first  or  second  rate.  As 
the  country  then  possessed  only  seventeen  ships  of  the  first  and 
second  rate  that  had  ever  been  at  sea,,  and  as  a  large  proportion 
of  the  persons  who  had  commanded  such  ships  had  good  posts 
on  shore,  the  expenditure  under  this  head  must  have  been  small 
indeed.*  In  the  army,  half  pay  was  given  merely  as  a  special 
and  temporary  allowance  to  a  small  nuober  of  officers  belong- 
ing to  two  regiments,  which  were  peculiarly  situated. f  Green- 
wich Hospital  had  not  been  founded.  Chelsea  Hospital  was 
building :  but  the  cost  of  that  institution  was  defrayed  partly  by 
a  deduction  from  the  pay  af  the  troops,  and  partly  by  private 
subscription.  The  King  promised  to  conti'ibute  only  twenty 
thousand  pounds  for  architectural  expenses,  and  five  thousand 
a  year  for  the  maintenance  of  the  invalids. $  It  was  no  part  of 
the  plan  that  there  shoulJ  be  outpensioners.  The  whole  non- 
effective charge,  military  and  naval,  can  scarcely  have  exceeded 
ten  thousand  pounds  a  year.  It  now  exceeds  ten  thousand 
pounds  a  day. 

Of  the  expense  of  civil  government  only  a  small  portion 
was  defrayed  l»y  the  crown.  The  great  majority  of  the  func- 
tionaries whose  business  was  to  admhiister  justice  and  preserve 
order  either  gave  their  services  to  the  public  gratuitously,  or 
were  remunerated  in  a  iiumner  which  caused  no  d)-aiu  on  the 
revenue  of  the  state.  Tiie  sheriffs,  mayors,  and  aldermen  of 
the  towns,  the  country  gentlemen  who  were  in  the  commission 

March  20, 1688-9.  In  1833,  itwas  determined,  after  full  enquiry,  that  a  hundred 
and  seventy  thousand  barrels  of  gunpowder  should  constantly  he  kept  in  store. 

*  It  appears  from  the  records  ot  the  Admiralty,  that  Flag  officers  were  allowed 
half  pay  m  I'CGS,  Captains  of  first  and  second  rates  not  till  1674. 

t  Warrant  in  the  War  Office  Kecords,  dated  March  26,  1678. 

t  Evelyn's  Diary,  Jan.  27, 1682.  I  have  seen  a  privy  seal,  dated  May  17, 1683, 
which  confirms  Evelyn's  testimony. 


282  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

of  the  jDeace,  the  headboroughs,  bailifPs,  and  petty  constables, 
cost  the  King  nothing.  The  superior  courts  of  law  were 
chiefly  supported  by  fees. 

Our  relations  with  foreign  courts  had  been  put  on  the  most 
economical  footing.  The  only  diplomatic  agent  who  had  the 
title  of  Ambassador  resided  at  Constantinople,  and  was  partly 
supported  by  the  Turkish  Company.  Even  at  the  court  of 
Versailles  England  had  only  an  Envoy  ;  and  she  had  not  even 
an  Envoy  at  the  Spanish,  Swedish,  and  Danish  courts.  The 
whole  expense  under  this  head  cannot,  in  the  last  year  of  the 
reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  have  much  exceeded  twenty 
thousand  pounds.* 

In  this  frugality  there  was  nothing  laudable.  Charles  was, 
as  usual,  niggardly  in  the  wrong  place,  and  munificent  in  the 
wrong  place.  The  public  service  was  starved  that  courtiers 
might  be  pampered.  The  expense  of  the  navy,  of  the  ordnance, 
of  pensions  to  needy  old  officers,  of  missions  to  foreign  courts, 
must  seem  small  indeed  to  the  present  generation.  But  the 
personal  favourites  of  the  sovereign,  his  ministers,  and  the 
creatures  of  those  ministers,  were  gorged  with  public  money. 
Their  salaries  and  pensions,  when  compared  with  the  incomes 
of  the  nobility,  the  gentry,  the  commercial  and  professional 
men  of  that  age,  vvill  appear  enormous.  The  greatest  estates 
in  the  kingdom  then  very  little  exceeded  twenty  thousand  a 
year.  The  Duke  of  Ormond  had  twenty-two  thousand  a  year.f 
The  Duke  of  Buckingham,  before  his  extravagance  had  im- 
paired his  great  property,  had  nineteen  thousand  six  hundred  a 
year.t  George  Monk,  Duke  of  Albemarle,  who  had  been  re- 
warded for  his  eminent  services  with  immense  grants  of  crown 
land,  and  who  had  been  notorious  both  for  covetousness  and  for 
parsimony,  left  fifteen  thousand  a  year  of  real  estate,  and  sixty 
thousand  pounds  in  money  which  probably  yielded  seven  per 

*  James  the  Second  sent  Envoys  to  Spain,  Sweden,  and  Denmark  ;  yet  in  his 
reign  the  diplomatic  expenditure  was  little  more  than  30,000/.  a  year.  Seethe 
Commons'  Journals,  March  20,  1688-9  Chamberlayne's  State  of  England,  1684, 
1687. 

t  Carte's  Life  of  Ormond. 

t  Pepys's  Diary,  Feb.  14, 1661. 

V 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  283 

cent.*  These  three  Dukes  were  supposed  to  be  three  of  the 
very  richest  subjects  in  England.  The  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury can  hardly  have  had  five  thousand  a  year.f  The  average 
income  of  a  temporal  peer  was  estimated,  by  the  best  informed 
persons,  at  about  three  thousand  a  year,  the  average  income  of 
a  baronet  at  nine  hundred  a  year,  the  average  income  of  a 
member  of  the  House  of  Commons  at  less  than  eight  hun- 
dred a  year.  J  A  thousand  a  year  was  thought  a  large  revenue 
for  a  barrister.  Two  thousand  a  year  was  hardly  to  be  made 
in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  except  by  the  crown  lawyers. § 
It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  an  official  man  would  have  been 
well  paid  if  he  had  received  a  fourth  or  fifth  part  of  what 
would  now  "be  an  adequate  stipend.  In  fact,  however,  the 
stipends  of  the  higher  class  of  official  men  were  as  large  as  at 
present,  and  not  seldom  larger.  The  Lord  Treasurer,  for  ex- 
ample, had  eight  thousand  a  year,  and,  when  the  Treasury  was  in 
commission,  the  junior  Lords  had  sixteen  hundred  a  year  each. 
The  Paymaster  of  the  F'orces  had  a  poundage,  amounting,  in 
time  of  peace,  to  about  five  thousand  a  year,  on  all  the  money 
which  passed  through  his  hands.  The  Groom  of  the  Stole  had 
five  thousand  a  year,  the  Commissioners  of  the  Customs  twelve 
hundred  a  year  each,  the  Lords  of  the  Bedchamber  a  thousand 
a  year  each.||  The  regular  salary,  however,  was  the  smallest 
part  of  the  gains  of  an  official  man  at  that  age.  From  the 
noblemen  who  held  the  white  staff  and  the  great  seal,  down  to 
the  humblest  tidewaiter  and  gauger,  what  would  now  be  called 
gross  corruption   was  practised  without  disguise  and  without 

*  See  the  Report  of  the  Bath  and  Montague  ease,  which  was  decided  by  Lord 
Keeper  Somers,  in  December,  1693. 

t  During  three  quarters  of  a  year,  beginning  from  Christmas,  1689,  tlie  reve- 
nues of  the  see  of  Canterbury  were  received  by  an  officer  appointed  by  tlie 
crown.  That  officer's  accounts  are  now  in  the  British  Museum.  (Langdo\vne 
MSS.  885.)  The  gross  revenue  for  the  three  quarters  was  not  quite  four  thousand 
pounds  ;  and  the  difference  between  the  gross  and  the  net  revenue  was  evidently 
something  considerable. 

t  King's  Natural  and  Political  Conclusions.  Davenant  on  the  Balance  of 
Trade.  Sir  W.  Temple  says,  "  The  revenues  of  a  House  of  Commons  have  sel- 
dom exceeded  four  hundred  thousand  pounds."    Memoirs,  Third  Part. 

§  Langton's  Conversations  with  Chief  Justice  Hale,  1672. 

II  Commons"  Journals,  April  27, 1689 ;  CHanjberla^ne's  St»te  of  England,  1684. 


284  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

♦  ' 

reproach.  Titles,  places,  commissions,  pardons,  were  daily  sold 
in  market  overt  by  the  great  dignitaries  of  the  realm  ;  and 
every  clerk  in  every  department  imitated,  to  the  best  of  his 
power,  the  evil  example. 

During  th«  last  century  no  prime  minister,  however  power- 
ful, has  become  rich  in  office  ;  and  several  prime  ministers  have 
impaired  their  private  fortune  in  sustaining  their  public  charac- 
ter. In  the  seventeenth  century,  a  statesman  Avho  was  at  the 
head  of  affairs  might  easily,  and  without  giving  scandal,  accu- 
mulate in  no  long  time  an  estate  amply  sufficient  to  support  a 
dukedom.  It  is  probable  that  the  income  of  the  prime  minis- 
ter, during  his  tenure  of  power,  far  exceeded  that  gf  any  other 
subject.  The  place  of  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland  was  popu- 
larly reported  to  be  worth  forty  thousand  pounds  a  year.*  The 
gains  of  the  Chancellor  Clarendon,  of  Arlington,  of  Lauderdale, 
and  of  Danby,  were  certainly  enormous.  The  sumptuous  palace 
to  which  the  populace  of  London  gave  the  name  of  Dunkirk 
House,  the  stately  pavilions,  the  fishponds,  the  deer  park  and 
the  orangery  of  Euston,  the  more  tlian  Italian  luxury  of  TIam, 
with  its  busts,  fountains,  and  aviaries,  were  among  the  many 
signs  which  indicated  what  was  the  shortest  road  to  boundless 
wealth.  This  is  the  true  explanation  of'  the  unscrupulous  vio- 
lence with  which  the  statesmen  of  that  day  struggled  for  office, 
of  the  tenacity  with  which,  in  spite  of  vexations,  humiliations 
and  dangers,  they  clung  to  it,  and  of  the  scandalous  compliances 
to  which  they  stooped  in  order  to  retain  it.  Even  in  our  own 
age,  formidable  as  is  the  power  of  opinion,  and  high  as  is 
the  standard  of  integrity,  there  would  be  great  risk  of  a 
lamentable  change  in  the  character  of  our  public  men,  if  the 
place  of  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  or  Secretary  of  State  were 
worth  a  hundred  thousand  pounds  a  year.  Happy  for  ouf  coun- 
try the  emoluments  of  the  highest  class  of  functionaries  have 
not  only  not  grown  in  proportion  to  the  general  growth  of  our 
opulence,  but  have  positively  diminished. 

The  fact  that  the  sura  raised  in  England  by  taxation  has,  in 

*  See  the  Travels  of  the  Grand  Duk©  Cosmo. 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  285 

a  time  not  exceeding  two  long  lives,  been  multiplied  forty-fold, 
is  strange,  and  may  at  first  sight  seem  appalling.     But  those 
who  are  alarmed  by  the  increase  of  the   public  burdens  may 
perhaps  be  reassured  when  they  have   considered  the  increase 
of  the  public  resources.     In  the  year   1685,  the  value  of  the 
produce  of  the  soil  far  exceeded  the  value  of  all  the  other  fruits 
of  human  industry.    Yet  agriculture  was  in  what  would  now  be 
considered  as  a  very  rude  and  imperfect  state.    The  arable  land 
and  pasture  land  were  not  supposed  by  the  best  political  arith- 
meticians of  that  age  to  amount  to   much  more  than  half  the 
area  of  the  kingdom.*     The  remainder  was  believed  to  consist 
of  moor,  iorest,  and  fen.     These  computations  are  strongly  con- 
firmed by  the  road  books  and  maps  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
From  those  books  and  maps  it  is  clear  that  many  routes  which 
now  pass  through  an  endless  succession  of  orchards,  cornfields, 
hayfields,  and  beanfields,  then   ran  through  nothing  but  heath, 
swamp,  and  warren.f     In  the  drawings  of  English  landscapes 
made  in  that  age  for  the  Grand  Duke  Cosmo,  scarce  a  hedgerow 
is   to  be  seen,  and  numerous  tracts,  now  rich  with  cultivation, 
appear  as  bare  as  Salisbury  Plain. $     At  Enfield,  hardly  but  of 
eight  of  the   smoke   of  the  capital,  was  a  region  of  five  and 
twenty   miles    in    circumference,   which    contained    only   three 
houses  and  scarcely  any  enclosed  fields.     Deer,  as  free  as  in  an 
American  forest,  wandered  there  by  thousands.  §     It  is   to  be 
remarked,  that  wild  animals  of  large   size  were  then  far   more 
numerous  than  at  present.     The  last  wild  boars,  indeed,  which 

*  King's  Natural  and  Political  Conclusions.  Davenant  on  the  Balance  of 
Trade. 

t  See  the  Itinerarium  Angliae,  1675,  by  John  Ogilby,  Cosmographer  Royal. 
He  describes  great  part  of  the  land  as  wood,  fen,  heath  on  both  sides,  marsh  on 
both  sides.  lu  some  of  his  maps  the  roads  through  enclosed  country  are  marked 
by  lines,  and  the  roads  through  unenclosed  country  by  dots-  The  proportion  of 
unenclosed  country,  which,  if  cultivated,  must  have  been  wretchedly  cultivated, 
seems  to  have  been  very  great.  From  Abingdon  to  Gloucester,  for  example,  a 
distance  of  forty  or  fifty  miles,  there  was  not  a  single  enclosure,  and  scarcely 
one  enclosure  between  Biggleswade  and  Lincoln. 

t  Large  copies  of  these  highly  interesting  drawings  are  in  the  noble  collec- 
tion bequeathed  by  Mr.  Grenville  to  the  British  Museum.  See  particularly  the 
drawings  of  Exeter  and  Northampton. 

§  Evelyn's  Diary,  June  2,  1675. 


286  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

had   been   preserved  for   the   royal  diversion,   and   had  been 
allowed   to  ravage  the   cultivated    land   with  their  tusks,  had 
been  slaughtered  by  the   exasperated  rustics  during  the  license 
of-  the  civil  war.     The  last  wolf  that  has  roamed  our  island  had 
been  slain  in  Scotland  a  short  time  before  the  close  of  the  reign 
of  Charles  the  Second.     But  many  breeds,  now  extinct,  or  rare, 
both  of  quadrupeds   and  birds,  were  still  common.     The  fox, 
whose  life  is  now,  in  many  counties,  held  almost  as  sacred  as 
that  of  a  human  being,  was  then  considered  as  a  mere  nuisance. 
Oliver  Saint  John  told  the  Long  Parliament  that  Strafford  was 
to  be  regarded,  not  as  a  stag  or  a  hare,  to  whom  some  law  was 
to  be  given,  but  as  a  fox,  who  was  to  be  snared  by  any  means, 
and  knocked  on  the  head  without  pity.     This  illustration  would 
be  by  no  means  a  happy  one,  if  addressed  to  country  gentlemen 
of  our  time :  but  in  Saint  John's  days  there  were  not  seldom 
great  massacres  of  foxes  to  which  the  peasantry  thronged  with 
all  the  dogs  that  could  be  mustered :  traps  were  set :  nets  were 
spread :  no  quarter  was  given  ;  and  to  shoot  a  female  with  cub 
was  considered  as  a  feat  which  merited  the  warmest  gratitude 
of  the  neighbourhood.     The  red  deer  were  then  as  common  in 
Gloucestershire   and   Hampshire,  as   they  now  are  among  the 
Grampian   Hills.     On   one  occasion  Queen  Anne,  travelling  to 
Portsmouth,  saw  a  herd  of  no  less  than  five  hundred.     The 
wild  bull  with  his  white  mane  was  still  to  be  found  wandering 
in  a  few  of   the  southern  forests.     The  badger  made  his  dark 
and  tortuous  hole  on  the  side  of  every  hill  where  the  copse- 
wood  grew   thick.     The  wild  cats  were  frequently  heard  by 
night  wailing  round  the  lodges  of  the  rangers  of  "Whittlebury 
and  Needwood.     The  yellow-breasted  marfin  was  still  pursued 
in  Cranbourne  Chase  for  his  fur,  reputed  inferior  only  to  that 
of   the   sable.     Fen    eagles,  measuring   more    than    nine   feet 
between  the  extremities  of  the  wings,  preyed  on  fish  along  the 
coast  of  Norfolk.     On  all  the  downs,  from  the  British  Channel 
to  Yorkshire  huge  bustards  strayed  in  troops  of  fifty  or  sixty, 
and    were    often    hunted    with    greyhounds.     The   marshes  of 
Cambridgeshire  and  Lincolnshire  were  covered   during  some 
months  of  every  year  by  immense  clouds  of  cranes.     Some  of 


STATE  OF  ENGLAND  IN  1685.  287 

these  races  the  progress  of  cultivation  has  extirpated.  Of 
others  the  numbers  are  so  much  diminished  that  men  crowd  to 
gaze  at  a  specimen  as  at  a  Bengal  tiger,  or  a  Polar  bear.* 

The  progress  of  this  great  change  can  nowhere  be  more  p 
clearly  traced  than  in  the  Statute  Book.  The  number  of  en- 
closure acts  passed  since  King  George  the  Second  came  to  the 
throne  exceeds  four  thousand.  The  area  enclosed  under  the 
authority  of  those  acts  exceeds,  on  a  moderate  calculation,  ten 
thousand  square  miles.  How  many  square  miles,  which  were 
formerly  uncultivated  or  ill  cultivated,  have,  during  the  same 
period,  been  fenced  and  carefully  tilled  by  the  proprietors  with- 
out any  application  to  the  legislature,  can  only  be  conjectured. 
But  it  seems  highly  probable  that  a  fourth  part  of  England  has 
been,  in  the  course  of  little  more  than  a  century,  turned  from  a 
wild  into  a  garden. 

Even  in  those  parts  of  the  kingdom  which  at  the  close  of  the 
reiffu  of  Charles  the  Second  were  the  best  cultivated,  the  farm- 
iug,  though  greatly  improved  since  the  civil  war,  was  not  such 
as  would  now  be  thought  skilful.  To  this  day  no  effectual 
steps  have  been  taken  by  public  authority  for  the  purpose  of 
obtaining  accurate  accounts  of  the  produce  of  the  English  soil. 
The  historian  must  therefore  follow,  with  some  misgivings,  the 
guidance  of  those  writers  on  statistics  whose  reputation  for  dili- 
gence and  fidelity  stands  highest.  At  present  an  average  crop 
of  wheat,  rye,  barley,  oats,  and  beans,  is  supposed  considerably 
to  exceed  thirty  millions  of  quarters.  The  crop  of  wheat  would 
be  thousfht  wretched  if  it  did  not  exceed  twelve  millions  of 
quarters.  According  to  the  computation  made  in  the  year  1696 
by  Gregory  King,  the  whole  quantity  of  wheat,  rye,  barley? 
oats,  and  beans,  then  annually  grown  in  the  kingdom,  was  some- 
what less  than  ten  millions  of  quarters.  The  wheat,  which  was 
then  cultivated  only  on  the  strongest  clay,  and  consumed  only 
by  those  who  were  in   easy   circumstances,  he  estimated  at  less 

*  See  White's  Selborne  ;  Bell's  History  of  British  Quadrupeds;  Gentleman's 
Recreation,  1686;  Aubrey's  Natural  History  of  Wiltshire,  1685  ;  Morton's  History 
of  Northamptonshire,  1712  ;  "Willoughby's  Ornithology,  by  Ray,  1G78  ;  Latham's 
General  Synopsis  of  Birds  ;  and  Sir  Thomas  Browne's  Account  of  Birds  found  in 
Norfolk. 


288  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

tliaa  two  millions  of  quarters.  Charles  Davenant,  an  acute 
and  well  informed  though  most  unprincipled  and  rancorous 
politician,  differed  from  King  as  to  some  of  the  items  of  the 
account,  but  came  to  nearly  the  same  general  conclusions.* 

The  rotation  of  croj^s  was  very  imperfectly  understood.  It 
was  known,  indeed,  that  some  vegetables  lately  introduced  into 
our  island,  particularly  the  turnip,  afforded  excellent  nutriment 
in  winter  to  sheep  and  oxen  :  but  it  was  not  yet  the  practice  to 
feed  cattle  in  this  manner.  It  was  therefore  by  no  means  easy 
to  keep  them  alive  during  the  season  when  the  grass  is  scanty. 
They  were  killed  and  salted  in  great  numbers  at  the  beginning 
of  the  cold  weather  ;  and,  during  several  months,  even  the  gen- 
try tasted  scarcely  any  fresh  'animal  food,  except  game  and 
river  fish,  which  were  consequently  much  more  imjjortaut  arti- 
cles in  housekeeping  than  at  present.  It  appears  from  the 
Northumberland  Household  Book  that,  in  the  reign  of  Henry 
the  Seventh,  fresh  meat  was  never  eaten  even  by  the  gentlemen 
attendant  on  a  great  Eai'l,  except  during  the  short  interval 
between  Midsummer  and  Michaelmas.  But  in  the  course  of 
two  centuries  an  improvement  had  taken  place  ;  and  under 
Charles  the  Second  it  was  not  till  the  beginning  of  November 
that  families  laid  in  their  stock  of  salt  provisions,  then  called 
Martinmas  beef.f 

The  sheep  and  the  ox  of  that  time  were  diminutive  when 
compared  with  the  sheep  and  oxen  which  are  now  driven  to  our 
markets,  t  Our  native  horses,  though  serviceable,  were  held  in 
small  esteem,  and  fetched  low  prices.  They  were  valued,  one 
with  another,  by  the  ablest  of  tlio  3  who  computed  the  national 
wealth,  at  not  more  than  fifty  shillings  each.  Foreign  breeds 
were  greatly  preferred.  Spanish  jennets  were  regarded  as  the 
finest  chargers,  and  were  imported  for  purposes  of  pageantry 
and  war.  The  coaches  of  the  aristocracy  were  drawn  by  grey 
Flemish  mares,  which  trotted,  as  it  was  thought,  with  a  peculiar 

*  King's  Natural  and  Political  Conclusions.    Davenant  on  the  Balance  of 
Trade. 

•See  the  Almanacks  of  1684  and  1C.S5. 

J  See  Mr.  M'Cullocli's  Statistical  Account  of  the  British  Empire,  Part  ITL 
chap.  i.  sec.  6. 


STATE    OP   ENGLAND    IN    1685.  289 

grace,  and  endured  better  than  any  cattle  reared  m  our  island 
the  work  of  dragging  a  ponderous  equipage  over  the  rugged 
pavement  of  London.  Neither  the  modern  dray  horse  nor  the 
modern  race  horse  was  then  known.  At  a  much  later  period  the 
ancestors  of  the  gigantic  quadrupeds,  which  all  foreigners  now 
class  among  the  chief  wonders  of  London,  were  brought  from 
the  marshes  of  Walcheren  ;  the  ancestors  of  Childers  and  Eclipse 
from  the  sands  of  Arabia.  Already,  however,  there  was  among 
our  nobility  and  gentry  a  passion  for  the  amusements  of  the 
turf.  The  importance  of  improving  our  studs  by  an  infusion  of 
new  blood  was  strongly  felt ;  and  with  this  view  a  considerable 
number  of  barbs  had  lately  been  brought  into  the 'country.  Two 
men  whose  authority  on  such  subjects  was  held  in  great  esteem, 
the  Duke  of  Newcastle  and  Sir  John  Fen  wick,  pronounced  that 
the  meanest  hack  ever  imported  from  Tangier  would  produce  a 
finer  progeny  than  could  be  expected  from  the  best  sire  of  our 
native  breed.  They  would  not  readily  have  believed  that  a 
time  would  come  when  the  princes  and  nobles  of  nei"-hbourino- 
lands  would  be  as  eager  to  obtain  horses  from  England  as  ever 
the  English  had  been  to  obtain  horses  from  Barbary.* 

The  increase  of  vegetable  and  animal  produce,  though  great, 
seems  small  when  compared  with  the  increase  of  our  mineral 
wealth.  In  1G85  the  tin  of  Cornwall,  which  had,  more  than 
two  thousand  years  before,  attracted  the  Tyrian  sails  beyond 
the  pillars  of  Hercules,  was  still  one  of  the  most  valuable  sub- 
terranean productions  of  the  island.  The  quantity  annually 
extracted  from  the  earth  was  found  to  be,  some  years  later, 
sixteen  hundred  tons,  probably  about  a  third  of  what  it  now  is.f 
But  the  veins  of  copper  which  lie  in  the  same  region  were,  in 
the  time  of  Charles  the  Second,  altogether  neglected,  nor  did 
any  landowner  take  them  into  the  account  in  estimating  the 

*  King  and  Davenant  as  be!'ore  ;  The  rhike  of  Newcastle  on  Horsemanstip  ; 
Gentleman's  Recreation,  ICSG.  The  "  dappled  Flandera  mares  "  were  marks  of 
greatness  in  the  time  of  Pope,  and  eveti  later. 

The  vulgar  proverb,  that  the  grey  mare  is  the  better  horse,  originated,  I  sus- 
pect, in  the  preference  generally  given  to  the  grey  mares  of  Flanders  over  the 
finest  coach  horses  of  England. 

t  See  a  curious  note  by  Tonkin,  in  Lord  De  Dunstanville's  edition  of  Carew*» 
Survey  of  Cornwall. 

19 


P 


290  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

value  of  bis  property.  Cornwall  and  Wales  at  present  yield 
annually  near  fifteen  thousand  tons  of  copper,  worth  near  a 
million  and  a  half  sterling ;  that  is  to  say,  worth  about  twice  as 
much  as  the  annual  j^i'oduce  of  all  English  mines  cf  all  descrip- 
tions in  tbe  seventeenth  century.*  The  first  bed  of  rock  salf 
had  been  discovered  in  Cheshire  not  long  after  the  Restoration, 
but  does  not  appear  to  have  been  worked  till  much  later.  The 
salt  which  was  obtained  by  a  rude  pi^ocess  from  brine  pits  was 
held  in  no  high  estimation.  The  pans  in  which  the  manufacture 
was  carried  on  exhaled  a  sulphurous  stench  ;  and,  when  the 
evaporation  was  complete,  the  substance  which  was  left  was 
scarcely  fit  to  be  used  with  food.  Physicians  attributed  the 
scorbutic  and  pulmonary  complaints  which  were  common  among! 
the  English  to  this  unwholesome  condiment.  It  was  therefore 
seldom  used  by  the  upper  and  middle  classes  ;  and  there  was  r> 
regular  and  considerable  importation  from  France.  At  presen! 
our  springs  and  mines  not  only  supply  our  own  immense  deman*', 
but  send  annually  more  tlian  seven  hundred  millions  of  poun</ 
of  excellent  salt  to  foreign  countries.! 

Far  more  important  has  been  the  improvement  of  our  iro 
works.  Such  works  had  long  existed  in  our  island,  but  had  no. 
prospered,  and  had  been  regarded  with  no  favourable  eye  by  the 
government  and  by  the  public.  It  was  not  then  the  practice  to 
employ  coal  for  smelting  the  ore  ;  and  the  rapid  consumption 
of  wood  excited  the  alarm  of  politicians.  As  early  as  the  reign 
of  Elizabeth,  there  had  been  loud  complaints  that  whole  forests 
were  cut  down  for  the  purpose  of  feeding  the  furnaces  ;  and  the 
Parliament  had  interfered  to  proliibit  the  manufacturers  from 
burning  timber.  The  manufacture  consequently  languished. 
At  the^ close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  great  part  of 
the  iron  which  was  used  in  this  country  was  imported  from 
abroad ;  and  the  whole  quantity  cast  here  annually  seems  not 

*  Borlase's  Natural  History  of  Cornwall.  1758.  Tlie  quantity  of  copper  now 
produced,  I  have  taken  from  parliamentary  returns.  Davenant,  in  1700,  estimated 
the  annual  produce  of  all  the  mines  of  England  at  between  seven  and  aight 
hundred  thousand  pounds. 

t  Philosophical  Transactions ,  No.  53.  Nov.  1669,  No.  66.  Dec  1670,  No.  103. 
May  1674,  No  156.  Feb.  1683-4. 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  291 

to  have  exceeded  ten  thousand  tons.  At  present  the  trade  is 
thought  to  be  in  a  depressed  state  if  less  than  a  million  of  tons 
are  produced  in  a  year.* 

One  mineral,  perhaps  more  important  than  iron  itself, 
remains  to  be  mentioned.  Coal,  though  very  little  used  in  any 
species  of  manufacture,  was  already  the  ordinar)'-  fuel  in  some 
districts  which  were  fortunate  enough  to  possess  large  beds,  and 
in  the  capital,  which  could  easily  be  supplied  by  water  carriage. 
It  seems  reasonable  to  believe  that  at  lear,t  one  half  of  the  quan- 
tity then  extracted  from  the  pits  was  consumed  in  London.  The 
consumption  of  London  seemed  to  the  writers  of  that  age  enor- 
mous, and  was  often  mentioned  by  them  ai  a  proof  of  the  great 
ness  of  the  imperial  city.  Tliey  scarcely  hoped  to  be  believed 
when  they  affirmed  that  two  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  chal- 
drons, that  is  to  say,  about  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousa.id 
tons,  were,  in  the  last  year  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second, 
brought  to  the  Thames.  At  present  three  millions  and  a  half  of 
tons  are  required  yearly  by  the  metropolis  ;  and  tlie  whole 
annual  produce  cannot,  on  the  most  moderate  computation,  l)e 
estimated  at  less  than  thirty  millions  of  tons.f 

Wliile  these  great  changes  have  been  in  progress,  the  rent 
of  land  has,  as  might  be  expected,  been  almost  constantly  rising. 
In  some  districts  it  has  mu!ti[)lied  more  than  tenfold.  In  some 
it  lAs  not  more  than  doubled.  It  has  probably,  on  the  average^ 
quadrupled. 

Of  the  rent,  a  large  proportion  was  divided  among  the  couu 
try  gentlemen,  a   class  of  persons  whose  position  and  character 
it  is  most  important  that  we  should  clearly  understand ;  for  by 
their  influence  and  by  their  passions  the  fate  of  the  nation  was. 
at  several  important  conjunctures,  determined. 

*  Yarra-itoii,  England's  Improvement  by  Sea  and  Land,  1CT7  ;  Porter's  Pro- 
gress of  tho  Nuiio  .  See  also  a  remarkably  perspicuous  history,  iu  email  compass, 
of  ibe  E  iglish  iron  ,vo;ks,  in  M  .  M'Culloch's  Statistical  Account  of  the  British 
Empire. 

t  See  Chamberlayne's  State  of  England,  1684,  16&7  ;  Anglise  Metropolis,  1691 ; 
M'Culloch's  Statistical  Account  of  the  British  Empire,  Part  III.  chap.  ii.  (edition 
of  1847).    In  1845  the  quantity  of  coal  brought  into  London  appeared,  by  the  Pal 
liamentary  returns,  to  be  3.469,000  tons.    (1818.)    In  1854  the  quanti^  of  co^ 
brought  into  London  amounted  to  4,378,000  tons.    (1857.) 


292  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

We  should  be  much  mistaken  if  we  pictured  to  ourselves  the 
squires  of  the  seveuteeuth  ceutury  as  men  beariug  a  close  re- 
semuJaiice  to  their  desceudiiiits,  the  county  members  aud  chair- 
men of  quarter  sessions  with  whom  we  are  familictr.  ■  The 
modern  couutry  gentleman  generally  receives  a  liberal  educa- 
tion, passes  from  a  distiiiguisiied  school  to  a  distinguished 
college,  and  has  ample  opporiuuity  to  become  an  excellent 
scholar.  He  has  generally  seen  something  of  foreign  countries. 
A  considerable  part  of  his  life  has  generally  been  passed  in  the 
capital ;  and  the  relinements  of  the  capital  follow  him  into  the 
country.  There  is  perhaps  no  class  of  dwellings  so  pleasing 
as  the  rural  seats  of  the  English  gentry.  In  the  parks  aud 
pleasure  grounds,  nature,  dressed  yet  not  disguised  by  art,  wears 
her  most  alluring  form.  In  the  buildings,  good  sense  and  good 
taste  combine  to  produce  a  happy  union  of  the  comfortable  and 
the  graceful.  The  pictures,  fhe  musical  instruments,  the  library, 
would  in  jiny  other  country  be  considered  as  proving  the  owner 
to  be  an  eminently  polished  and  accomplished  man.  A  country 
gentleman  who  witnessed  the  Revolution  was  probably  in  re- 
ceipt of  about  a  fourth  .part  of  the  rent  which  his  acres  now 
yield  to  his  posterity.  He  wa<!.  therefore,  as  compared  with  his 
posterity,  a  poor  man.  aud  \v  i<  (fonerally  under  the  necessity  of 
residing,  with  little  interruption  on  his  estate.  To  travel  on 
the  Continent,  to  maintain  an  establishment  in  London,  or  even 
to  visit  London  frequently,  were  pleasures  in  which  only  the 
great  proprietors  could  indulge.  It  may  be  confidently  affirmed 
that  of  the  squires  whose  names  were  then  in  the  Commissions 
of  Peace  and  Lieutenancy  not  one  in  twenty  went  to  town  once 
in  five  years,  or  had  ovor  in  his  life  wandered  so  far  as  Paris. 
Many  lords  of  manors  liad  received  an  education  differing  little 
from  that  of  their  monial  servants.  The  heir  of  an  estate  often 
passed  his  boyhood  and  youth  at  the  seat  of  his  family  with  no 
better  tutors  than  grooms  and  gamekeepers,  and  scarce  attained 
learning  enouoh  to  sign  his  name  to  a  Mittimus.  If  he  went 
to  school  and  to  college,  he  general] v  returned  before  he  was 
twenty  to  the  seclusion  of  the  old  hall,  and  there,  unless  his 
mind  were  very  happily  constituted  by  nature,  soon  forgot  hlg 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1680.  293 

academical  pursuits  in  rural  business  and  pleasures.  His  chief 
serious  employment  was  the  care  of  his  property.  He  examined 
samples  of  grain,  handled  pigs,  and,  on  market  days,  made  bar- 
gains over  a  tankard  with  drovers  and  hop  merchants.  His 
chief  pleasures  were  commonly  derived  from  field  sports  and 
from  an  unrelined  sensuality.  His  language  and  pronunciation 
were  such  as  we  should  now  expect  to  hear  only  from  the  most 
ignorant  clowns.  His  oaths,  coarse  jests,  and  scurrilous  terms 
Df  abuse,  were  uttered  with  tho  broadest  accent  of  his  province. 
It  was  easy  to  discern,  from  the  first  words  which  he  spoke, 
whether  he  came  from  Somersetshire  or  Yorkshire.  He 
troubled  himself  little  about  decorating  his  abode,  and,  if  he 
attempted  decoration,  seldom  produced  anything  but  deformity. 
Tlie  litter  of  a  farmyard  gathered  under  the  windows  of  his 
b<idcham-lier,  and  the  cabbages  and  gooseberry  bushes  grew 
close  to  his  hall  door.  His  table  was  loaded  with  coarse  plenty  ; 
and  guests  were  cordially  welcomed  to  it.  But,  as  the  habit  of 
di-inking  to  excess  was  general  in  the  class  to  which  he  belonged, 
and  as  his  fortune  did  not  enable  him  to  intoxicate  large  assem- 
blies dally  with  claret  or  canaiy,  strong  beer  was  the  ordinary 
beverage.  The  quantity  of  beer  consumed  in  those  days  was 
indeed  enormous.  For  beer  then  was  to  the  middle  and  lower 
classes,  not  only  all  that  beer  is,  but  all  that  wine,  tea,  and 
ardent  spirits  now  are.  It  was  only  at  great  houses,  or  on  great 
occasions,  that  foreign  drink  was  placed  on  the  board.  The 
ladies  of  the  house,  whose  business  it  had  commonly  been  to 
cook  the  repast,  retired  as  soon  as  the  dishes  had  been  devoured, 
and  left  the  gentlemen  to  their  ale  and  tobacco.  The  coarse 
jollity  of  the  afternoon  was  often  prolonged  till  the  revellers 
were  laid  under  the  table. 

It.  was  very  seldom  that  the  country  gentleman  caught 
glimpses  of  the  great  world  ;  and  what  he  saw  of  it  tended 
rather  to  confuse  than  to  enlighten  his  understandinfr.  His 
opinions  respecting  religion,  government,  foreign  countries 
and  former  times,  having  been  derived,  not  from  study,  from 
observation,  or  from  conversation  with  enlightened  companions, 
but  from  such  traditions  as  were  current  in  his  own  small  circle, 


!f94  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

were  the  opinions  of  a  child.  He  adhered  to  them,  however, 
with  the  obstinacy  which  is  generally  found  in  ignorant  men 
accustomed  to  be  fed  with  flattery.  Ills  animosities  were  nume« 
rous  and  bitter.  He  hated  Frenchmen  and  Italians,  Scotchmen 
and  Irislimen,  Papists  and  Presbyterians,  Independents  and 
Baptists,  Quakers  and  Jews.  Towards  London  and  Londoners 
he  felt  an  aversion  which  more  than  once  produced  important 
political  effects.  His  wife  and  daughter  were  in  tastes  and 
acquirements  below  a  housekeeper  or  a  stillroom  maid  of  the 
l)resent  day.  They  stitched  and  spun,  brewed  gooseberry  wine, 
cured  marigolds,  and  made  the  crust  for  the  venison  pasty. 

From  this  description  it  might  be  supposed  that  the  En^rlish 
esquire  of  the  seventeenth  century  did  not  materially  differ 
from  a  rustic  miller  or  alehouse  keeper  of  our  time.  There  are, 
however,  some  important  parts  of  his  character  still  to.be  noted, 
which  will  greatly  modify  this  estimate.  Unlettered  as  he  was 
and  unpolished,  he  was  still  in  some  most  important  points  a 
gentleman.  He  was  a  member  of  a  proud  and  powerful  aristoc- 
racy, and  was  distinguishe  I  by  many  both  of  the  good  and  of 
the  bad  qualities  which  belong  to  aristocrats.  His  family  pride 
was  beyond  that  of  a  Talbot  or  a  Howard.  He  knew  the 
genealogies  and  coats  of  arms  of  all  his  neighbours,  and  could 
tell  which  of  them  had  assumed  supporters  without  any  right, 
and  which  of  them  were  so  unfo''tunate  as  to  be  greatgrandsons 
of  aldermen.  He  was  a  magistrate,  and,  as  such,  administered 
gratuitously  to  those  who  dwelt  around  him  a  rude  patriarchal 
justice,  which,  in  spite  of  innumerable  blunders  and  of  occasional 
acts  of  tyranny,  was  yet  better  than  no  justice  at  all.  He  was 
an  officer  of  the  trainbands ;  and  his  milicary  dignity,  though  it 
might  move  the  mirth  of  gallants  who  had  served  a  campaign  in 
Flanders,  raised  his  character  in  his  own  eyes  and  in  the  eyes  of 
his  neighbours.  Nor  indeed  was  his  soldiership  justly  a  subject 
of  derision.  In  every  county  there  were  elderly  gentlemea  who 
had  seen  service  wliich  was  no  child's  play  One  had  been 
knighted  by  Charles  the  First,  after  the  battle  of  Edgehill. 
Another  still  wore  a  patch  over  the  scar  which  he  had  received 
at  Naseby.     A  third  had  defended  his  old  house  till  Fairfax  had 


STATE    OF    KNGLAND    IN    1685.  295 

blown  iu  the  door  with  a  petard.  The  presence  of  these  old 
Cavaliers,  with  their  old  swords  and  holsters,  and  with  their  old 
^.tories  about  Goring  and  Lunsf ord,  gave  to  the  musters  of  militia 
'in  earnest  and  warlike  aspect  which  would  otherwise  have  been 
wanting.  Even  those  country  ejentlemen  who  were  too  vounrr 
to  have  themselves  exchanged  blows  with  the  cuirassiers  of  t'.ic 
Parliament  had,  from  childhood,  been  surrounded  by  the  traces 
if  recent  war,  and  fed  with  stories  of  the  martial  exploits  of 
their  fathers  and  uncles.  Thus  the  character  of  tlie  English 
esquire  of  the  seventeenth  century  was  compounded  of  two 
elements  which  we  seldom  or  never  find  united.  His  ifjnorance 
and  uncouthness,  his  low  tastes  and  gross  jjhrases,  would,  in  our 
time,  be  considered  as  indicating  a  nature  and  a  breeding 
thoroughly  plebeian.  Yet  ho  was  essentially  a  patrician,  and 
had,  in  large  measure,  both  tlie  virtues  ami  the  vices  which 
nourish  among  men  set  from  their  birth  in  high  place,  and  used 
to  respect  themselves  and  to  be  respected  by  others.  It  is  not 
easy  for  a  generation  accustomed  to  find  chivalraus  sentiments 
only  in  company  with  liberal  studies  and  polished  manners  to 
image  to  itself  a  man  with  the  deportment,  the  vocabulary,  and 
the  accent  of  a  carter,  yet  punctilious  on  matters  of  genealogy 
and  precedence,  and  ready  to  risk  his  life  rather  than  see  a  stahi 
cast  on  the  honour  of  his  house.  It  is  however  only  by  thus 
joniing  together  things  seldom  or  never  found  together  in  our 
own  experience,  that  we  can  form  a  just  idea  of  that  rustic 
aristocracy  which  constituted  the  main  strength  of  the  armies  of 
Charles  the  First,  and  which  long  supported,  with  strange  fidelity, 
the  interest  of  his  descendants. 

The  gross,  uneducated,  untravelled  country  gentleman  was 
commonly  a  Tory  ;  but,  though  devotedly  attached  to  hereditary- 
monarchy,  he  had  no  partiality  for  courtiers  and  ministers.  He 
thought,  not  without  reason,  that  Whitehall  was  filled  with  the 
most  corrupt  of  mankind,  and  that  of  the  great  sums  which  the 
House  of  Commons  had  voted  to  the  crown  since  the  Restoration 
part  had  been  embezzled  by  cunning  politicians,  and  part  squan- 
dered on  buffoons  and  foreign  courtesans.  His  stout  English 
hiuu-^  owelled  with  indignation  at  the  thought  that  the  govero 


296  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

ment  of  Jus  country  should  be  subject  to  French  dictation. 
Being  himself  generally  an  old  Cavalier,  or  the  sou  of  an  old 
Cavalier,  he  reflected  with  bitter  resentment  on  the  ingratitude 
with  which  the  Stuarts  had  requited  their  best  friends.  Those 
who  lieai'd  him  grumble  at  the  neglect  with  which  he  was  treated, 
and  at  the  profusion  with  which  wealth  was  lavished  on  the 
bastards  of  Nell  Gwynn  and  Madam  Carwell,  would  have  sup- 
posed him  ripe  for  rebellion.  But  all  this  ill  humour  lasted 
only  till  the  throne  was  really  in  danger.  It  was  precisely  when 
those  whom  the  sovereign  had  loaded  with  wealth  and  honours 
shrank  from  his  side  that  the  country  gentlemen,  so  surly 
and  mutinous  in  the  season  of  his  prosperity,  rallied  round 
him  in  a  body.  Thus,  after  murmuring  twenty  years  at  the 
misgovernment  of  Charles  the  Second,  they  came  to  his  rescue 
in  his' extremity,  when  his  own  Secretaries  of  State  and. the 
Lords  of  his  own  Treasury  had  deserted  him,  and  enabled  liim 
to  gain  a  comj^lete  victory  over  the  opposition  ;  nor  can  there  l-o 
any  doubt  that  they  would  have  shown  equal  loyalty  to  his 
brother  James,  if  James  would,  even  at  the  lust  moment,  have 
refrained  from  outrairinfj  their  stroufjest  feeling.  For  there 
was  one  institution,  and  one  only,  which  they  prized  even  more 
than  hereditary  monarchy  ;  and  that  institution  was  the  Church  of 
England.  Their  love  of  the  Church  was  not,  indeed,  the  effect 
of  study  or  meditation.  Few  among  them  could  have  given  any 
reason,  drawn  from  Scripture  or  ecclesiastical  history,  for  adher- 
ing to  her  doctrines,  her  ritual,  and  her  polity ;  cor  were  they, 
as  a  class,  by  any  means  strict  observers  of  that  code  of  morality 
which  is  common  to  all  Christian  sects.  But  the  experience  of 
many  ages  proves  that  men  may  be  ready  to  fight  to  the  death, 
and  to  persecute  without  pity,  for  a  religion  whose  creed  they 
donotunderstand,  and  whose  precepts  they  habitually  disobey.* 
The  rural  clergy  were  even  more  vehement  m  Toryism  than 
the  rural  gentry,  and  were  a  class  scarcely  less  important.     It 

•  My  nolion  of  the  country  gentleman  of  the  seventeenth  century  has  been  de- 
rived from  sources  too  numerous  to  be  reoapilulared.  Imust  leave  my  descrip- 
tion to  the  judgment  of  those  who  have  studied  tho  history  and  the  lighter  liter* 
atureof  that  age. 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  297 

is  to  be  observed,  however,  that  the  individual  clergyman,  as 
compared  ■witli  tlie  individual  gentleman,  then  ranked  much 
lower  than  in  our  days.  The  main  support  of  the  Church  was 
derived  from  the  tithe  ;  and  the  tithe  bore  to  the  rent  a  much 
smaller  ratio  than  at  present.  King  estimated  the  whole  incomft 
of  the  parochial  and  collegiate  clergy  at  only  four  hundred  and 
eighty  thousand  pounds  a  year  ;  Davenant  at  only  five  hundred 
and  forty-four  thousand  a  year.  It  is  certainly  now  more  than 
seven  times  as  great  as  the  larger  of  these  two  sums.  The  aver- 
age rent  of  the  land  has  not,  according  to  any  estimate,  increased 
proportionally.  It  follows  that  the  rectors  and  vicars  must  have 
been,  as  compared  with  the  neighbouring  knights  and  squires, 
much  poorer  in  the  seventeenth  than  in  the  nineteenth  century. 
The  place  of  the  clergyman  in  society  had  been  completely 
changed  by  the  Reformation.  Before  that  event,  ecclesiastics 
had  formed  the  majority  of  the  House  of  Lords,  had,  in 
wealth  and  splendour,  equalled,  and  sometimes  outshone,  the 
greatest  of  the  temporal  barons,  and  had  generally  held  the 
highest  civil  offices.  Many  of  the  Treasurers,  and  almost  all 
the  Chancellors  of  the  Plantagenets  were  Bishops.  The 
Lord  Keeper  of  the  Privy  Seal  and  the  IMaster  of  the  Rolls 
were  ordinarily  churchmen.  Churchmen  transacted  the  most 
important  diplomatic  business.  Indeed  all  tliat  large  portion 
of  the  administration  which  rude  and  warlike  nobles  were 
incompetent  to  conduct  was  considered  as  especially  belong- 
ing to  divines.  Men,  therefore,  who  were  averse  to  the  life 
of  camps,  and  who  were,  at  the  same  time,  desirous  to  rise  iu 
the  state,  commonly  received  the  tonsure.  Amonsc  them  wero 
sons  of  all  the  most  illustrious  families,  and  near  kinsmen  of 
the  throne.  Scroops  and  Nevilles,  Bourchiers,  Staffords  and 
Poles.  To  the  religious  houses  belonged  the  rents  of  im- 
mense domains,  and  all  that  large  portion  of  the  tithe  which 
is  now  in  the  hands  of  laymen.  Down  to  the  middle  of  the 
reign  of  Henry  the  Eiglith,  therefore,  no  line  of  life  was  so 
attractive  to  ambitious  and  covetous  natures  as  the  priesthood. 
Then  came  a  violent  revolution.  The  abolition  of  the  monas- 
teries   deprived    the  Church  at  once  of  the  greater  part  of 


298  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

her  wealth,  and  of  her  predominance  in  the  Upper  House  of 
Parliament.  There  was  no  longer  an  Abbot  of  Glastonbury  or 
an  Abbot  of  Reading  seated  among  the  peers,  and  possessed  of 
revenues  equal  to  those  of  a  powerful  Earl.  The  princely 
splendour  of  William  of  Wykehara  and  of  William  of  Waynflete 
had  disappeared.  The  scarlet  hat  of  the  Cardinal,  the  silver 
cross  of  the  Legate,  were  no  more.  Tiie  clergy  had  also  lost 
the  ascendency  which  is  the  natural  reward  of  superior  mental 
cultivation.  Once  the  circumstance  that  a  m:in  could  read  had 
raised  a  presumption  that  he  was  in  orders.  ]5iit,  in  an  age 
which  produced  such  laymen  as  William  Cecil  and  Nicholas 
Bacon,  Roger  Ascham  and  Thomas  Smith,  Walter  Mildmay  and 
Francis  Walsingham,  there  was  no  reason  for  calling  away 
prelates  from  their  dioceses  to  negotiate  treaties,  to  superintend 
the  finances,  or  to  administer  justice.  The  spiritual  character 
not  only  ceased  to  be  a  qualification  for  high  civil  office,  but 
began  to  be  regarded  as  a  disqualification.  Those  worldiy 
motives,  therefore,  which  had  formerly  induced  so  manj^  able, 
aspiring,  and  high  born  j-ouths  to  assume  the  ecclesiastical  habit, 
ceased  to  operate.  Not  one  parish  in  two  hundred  then  afforded 
what  a  man  of  family  considered  as  a  maintenance.  There 
were  still  indeed  prizes  in  the  Church  :  but  they  were  few  ;  and 
even  the  highest  were  mean,  when  compared  with  the  glory 
which  had  once  surrounded  the  princes  of  the  hierarchy.  The 
state  kept  by  Parker  and  Grindal  seemed  beggai-ly  to  those  who 
remembered  the  imperial  pomj)  of  Wolsey,  his  palaces,  which 
had  become  the  favorite  abodes  of  royalty,  Whitehall  and 
Hampton  Court,  the  three  sumptuous  tables  daily  spread  in  his 
refectory,  the  forty-four  gorgeous  copes  in  his  chapel,  his  run- 
ning footmen  in  rich  liveries,  and  his  body  guards  with  gilded 
poleaxes.  Thus  the  sacerdotal  office  lost  its  attraction  for  the 
higher  classes.  During  the  century  which  followed  the  acces- 
sion of  Elizabeth,  scarce  a  single  person  of  noble  descent  took 
orders.  At  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  two 
sons  of  peers  were  Bishops  ;  four  or  five  sons  of  peers  were 
priests,  and  held  valuable  preferment  :  but  these  rare  excep' 
tious  did  not  take  away' the  reproach  which  lay  on  the  body. 


6TATE  OP  ENGLAND  IN  1G85.  '^^^ 

The  clergy  were  regarded  as,  on  the  whole,  a  plebeian  class.* 
And,  indeed,  for  one  who  made  the  figure  of  a  gentleman,  ten 
were  mere  menial  servants.  A  large  pi'oportion  of  those  divines 
who  had  no  benefices,  or  whose  benefices  were  too  small  to 
afford  a  comfortable  revenue,  lived  in  the  houses  of  laymen.  It 
had  long  been  evident  that  this  practice  tended  to  degrade  the 
priestly  character.  Laud  had  exerted  himself  to  effect  a  change ; 
and  Charles  the  First  had  repeatedly  issued  positive  orders  that 
none  but  men  of  liigh  rank  should  presume  to  keep  domestic 
chaplains. t  But  these  injunctions  had  become  obsolete.  Indeed 
during  the  domination  of  the  Puritan,  many  of  the  ejected 
ministers  of  the  Ch.urch  of  England  could  obtain  bread  and 
shelter  only  by  attaching  themselves  to  the  households  of  roy- 
alist gentlemen  ;  and  the  habits  which  had  been  formed  in  those 
times  of  trouble  continued  long  after  the  reestablishment  of 
monarchy  and  episcopacy.  In  the  mansions  of  men  of  liberal 
sentiments  and  cultivated  understandings,  the  chaplain  was 
doubtless  treated  with  urbanity  and  kindness.  Ills  conversation, 
his  literary  assistance,  his  spiritual  advice,  were  considered  as 
an  ample  return  for  his  food,  his  lodging,  and  his  stipend.  But 
this  was  not  the  general  feeling  of  the  country  gentlemen.  The 
coarse  and  ignorant  squire,  who  thought  that  it  belonged  to  his 
dignity  to  have  grace  said  every  day  at  his  table  by  an  ec- 
clesiastic in  full  canonicals,  found  means  to  reconcile  dignity 
with  economy.  A  young  Levite — such  was  the  phrase  then  in 
use — might  be  had  for  his  board,  a  small  garret,  and  ten  pounds 
a  year,  and  might  not  only  perform  his  own  professional  func- 
tions, might  not  only  be  the  most  patient  of  butts  and  of  listen- 
ers, might  not  only  be  always  ready  in  fine  weather  for  bowls, 
and  in  rainy  weather  for  shovelboard,  but  might  also  save  the 

*  Tn  the  eighteenth  century  "he  great  increase  in  the  value  of  benefices  pro- 
duced ;i  cliange.  The  younger  sons  of  the  nobility  were  allured  back  to  the 
clerical  profession.  Warburton  in  a  letter  to  Hurd,  dated  the  5th  of  July,  1752, 
mentions  this  change,  which  was  then  recent.  "  Our  grandees  have  at  last  found 
their  way  back  into  the  Church.  1  only  wonder  they  have  been  so  long  about  it. 
But  be  assured  that  nothing  but  a  now  religious  revolution,  to  sweep  away  the 
fragments  that  Henry  the  Eighth  left  after  banqueting  his  courtiers,  will  drive 
them  out  again." 

t  See  HeyUn's  Cyprianus  Anglicus 


300  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

expense  of  a  gardener,  or  of  a  groom.  Sometimes  the  reverend 
man  nailed  up  the  apricots  ;  and  sometime^  he  curried  the  coach 
horses.  He  cast  up  the  farrier's  bills.  He  walked  ten  miles 
with  a  message  or  a  parcel.  He  was  permitted  to  dine  with  tlie 
family  ;  but  he  was  expected  to  content  himself  with  the  plain- 
est fare.  He  midit  fill  himself  with  the  corned  beef  and  the 
carrots  :  but,  as  soon  as  the  tarts  and  cheesecakes  made  their 
appearance,  he  quitted  his  seat,  and  stood  aloof  till  he  was  sum- 
moned to  return  thanks  for  the  repast,  from  a  great  part  of 
which  he  had  been  excluded.* 

Perhaps,  after  some  years  of  service,  he  was  presented  to  a 
living  sufficient  to  support  him  ;  but  he  often  found  it  necessary 
to  i^urchase  his  preferment  by  a  sj^ecies  of  Simony,  which  fur- 
nished an  inexhaustible  subject  of  pleasantry  to  three  or  four 
generations  of  scoffers.  With  his  cure  he  was  expected,  to 
take  a  wife.  The  wife  had  ordinarily  been  in  the  patron's 
service ;  and  it  was  well  if  she  was  not  suspected  of  standing 
too  high  in  the  patron's  favor.  Indeed  the  nature  of  the  mat 
rimonial  connections  which  the  clergymen  of  that  age  were  h 
the  habit  of  forming  is  the  most  certain  indication  of  the  place 
which  the  order  held  in  the  social  system.  An  Oxonian,  writing 
a  few  months  after  the  death  of  Charles  the  Second,  complained 
bitterly,  not  only  tlrat  the  country  attorney  and  the  country 
apothecary  looked  down  with  disdain  on  the  country  clergyman, 
but  that  one  of  the  lessons  most  earnestly  inculcated  on  every 
girl  of  honourable  family  was  to  give  no  encouragement  to  a 
lover  in  orders,  anct  that,  if  any  young  lady  forgot  this  precept, 
she  was  almost  as  much  aisgraced  as  by  an  illicit  amour. "} 
Clarendon,   who   assurealy  bore   no  ill  will  to  the  priesthood^ 

«  Eachard,  Causes  of  the  Contempt  of  the  Clergy  ;  Oldham,  Satire  addressed 
to  a  Friend  about  to  leave  the  University  ;  Tatler,  255,  258.  That  the  Enjilisb 
clergy  were  a  lowborn  class,  is  remarked  in  the  Travels  of  the  Grand  Duke  Cosmo, 
Appendix  A. 

t  "A  causidico,  metficastro,  ipsaque  artificum  f.arras;ine,  ecclesife  rector  aut 
Vicarius  contemnitur  et  fit  ludibrio.  Gentis  et  familite  iiitor  sacris  ordinibua 
poUutus  eensetur:  fneminisque  natalitio  insigiiibns  unicum  inculcatnr  sippiua 
prseceptum,  ne  modestl?e  naufragium  faciant.  ant,  (qnod  idem  auribus  tam  de- 
licatulis  sonat,)  ne  clerico  i5e  nuptas  dari  patiantur."— Anglias  Notitia,  by  T. 
Wood,  of  New  College,  Oxford,  1686. 


/.N 


STATE    OP    ENGLAND    IN    1685  301 

mentious  it  as  a  sign  of  the  confusion  of  ranks  wliich  the  great 
rebellion  had  pi'oduced,  that  some  damsels  of  noble  families  had 
bestowed  themselves  on  divines.*  A  waiting  woman  was  gen- 
erally considered  as  the  most  suitable  helpmate  for  a  parson. 
Queen  Elizabeth,  as  head  of  the  Church,  had  given  what  seemed 
to  be  a  formal  sanction  to  this  prejudice,  by  issuing  special 
orders  that  no  clergyman  should  presume  to  espouse  a  servant 
girl,  without  the  consent  of  tlie  master  or  mistress. f  During 
several  generations  accordingly  tlie  relation  between  divines 
and  handmaidens  was  a  theme  for  endless  jest ;  nor  would  it  be 
easy  to  find,  in  the  comedy  of  the  seventeenth  century,  a  single 
instance  of  a  clergyman  who  wins  a  spouse  above  the  rank  of 
cook.t  Even  so  late  as  the  time  of  George  the  Second,  the 
keenest  of  all  observers  of  life  and  manners,  himself  a  priest, 
remarked  that,  in  a  great  household,  the  chaplain  was  the 
resource  of  a  lady's  maid  whose  character  had  been  blown 
upon,  and  who  was  therefore  forced  to  give  up  hopes  of  catch- 
ing the  steward. § 

In  general  the  divine  who  quitted  his  chaplainship  for  a, 
benefice  and  a  wife  found  that  he  had  only  exchanged  one  class 
of  vexations  for  another.  Hardly  one  living  in  fifty  enabled 
the  incumbent  to  bring  up  a  family  comfortably.  As  children 
multiplied  and  grew,  the  household  of  the  priest  became  more 
and  more  beggarly.  Holes  appeared  more  and  more  plainly  in 
the  thatch  of  his  parsonage  and  in  his  single  cassock.  Often 
it  was  only  by  toiling  on  his  glebe,  by  feeding  swine,  and  by 
loading  dungcarts,  that  he  could  obtain  daily  bread ;  nor  did  his 
utmost  exertions  always  prevent  the  bailiffs  from  taking  his  con- 

*  Clarendon's  Life.  ii.  21. 

t  See  the  injunctions  of  1550,  in  Bishop  Sparrow's  Collection.  Jeremy  Collier, 
in  his  Essay  on  Pride,  speaks  of  this  injunction  with  a  bitterness  which  proves 
that  his  own  pride  had  not  been  effectually  tamed. 

t  Eoger  and  Abigail  in  Fletcher's  Scornful  Lady,  Bull  and  the  Nurse  in 
Vanbrugh's  Eelapse.  Smirk  and  Susan  in  Shadwell's  Lancashire  "Witches,  ara 
instances. 

§  Swift's  Directions  to  Servants.  In  Swift's  Remarks  on  the  Clerical  Residence 
Bill,  he  describes  the  family  of  an  English  vicar  thus  : — "  His  wife  is  little  better 

than  a  Goody,  in  her  birth,  education,  or  dress His  daughters  shall  go 

to  service,  or  be  sent  apprentice  to  the  sempstress  of  the  next  town." 


302  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

cordance  and  his  inkstand  in  execution.  It  was  a  white  day  on 
which  he  was  admitted  into  the  kitchen  of  a  great  house,  and 
regaled  by  the  servants  with  cold  meat  and  ale.  His  children 
were  brought  up  like  the  children  of  the  neighbouring  peasantry. 
His  boys  followed  the  plough ;  and  his  girls  went  out  to  ser- 
vice.* Study  ho  found  impossible  :  for  the  advowson  of  his 
living  would  hardly  have  sold  for  a  sum  sufficient  to  purchase  a 
good  theological  library  ;  and  he  might  be  considered  as  unusu- 
ally lucky  if  he  had  ten  or  twelve  dogeared  volumes  among  the 
pots  and  pans  on  his  shelves.  Even  a  keen  and  strong  intellect 
might  be  expected  to  rust  in  so  unfavourable  a  situation. 

Assuredly  there  was  at  that  time  no  lack  in  the  English 
Church  of  ministers  distinguished  by  abilities  and  learning. 
But  it  is  to  be  observed  that  these  ministers  were  not  scattered 
among  the  rural  population.  They  were  brought  together  at  a 
few  places  where  the  means  of  acquiring  knowledge  were 
abundant,  and  where  the  opportunities  of  vigorous  intellectual 
exercise  were  frequent. f  At  such  places  were  to  be  found 
divines  qualified  by  parts,  by  eloquence,  by  wide  knowledge  of 
literature,  of  science,  and  of  life,  to  defend  their  Church  vic- 
toriously against  heretics  and  sceptics,  to  command  the  attention 
of  frivolous  and  worldly  congregations,  to  guide  the  delibera- 
tions of  senates,  and  to  make  religion  respectable,  even  in  the 
most  dissolute  of  courts.  Some  laboured  to  fathom  the  abysses 
of  metaphysical  theology  :  some  were  deeply  versed  in  biblical 
criticism  ;  and  some  threw  light  on  the  darkest  parts  of  ecclesi- 
astical history.  Some  proved  themselves  consummate  masters 
of  logic.  Some  cultivated  rhetoric  with  such  assiduity  and  suc- 
cess that  their  discourses  are  still  justly  valued  as  models  of 
style.     These  eminent  men  were  to  be  found,  with  scarcely  a 

*  Eren  in  Tom  Jones,  published  two  generations  later,  Mrs.  Seagrim,  the  vrif  a 
of  a  gamekeeper,  and  Mrs.  Honour,  a  waitingwoman,  boast  of  their  descent  from 
clergymen.  "It  is  to  be  hoped,"  says  Fielding,  "such  instances  -will  in  future 
ages,  when  some  provision  is  made  for  the  families  of  the  inferior  clergy,  appear 
stranger  than  they  can  be  thoughfat  present. 

t  This  distinction  between  country  clerjrv  and  town  clergy  is  strongly  marked 
by  Eachard,  and  cannot  but  be  observed  by  every  person  who  has  studied  the 
ecclesiastical  history  ©f  that  age. 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1 G85.  303 

Bingle  exception,-  at  the  Universities,  at  the  great  Cathedrals,  or 
ill  the  capital.  Barrow  had  lately  died  at  Cambridge  ;  and 
Pearson  had  gone  thence  to  the  episcopal  bench.  Cudworth 
and  Henry  More  were  still  living  there.  South  and  Pococke, 
Jane  and  Aldrich,  were  i\t  Oxford,  Prideaux  was  in  the  close 
of  Norwich,  and  Whitby  in  the  close  of  Salisbury.  But  it  was 
chiefly  by  the  London  clergy,  who  were  always  spoken  of  as  a 
class  apart,  that  the  fame  of  their  profession  for  learning  and 
eloquence  was  upheld.  Tlie  principal  pulpits  of  the  metropo- 
lis were  occupied  about  this  time  by  a  crowd  of  distinguished 
men,  from  among  whom  was  selected  a  large  proportion  of  the 
rulers  of  the  Church.  Sherlock  preached  at  the  Temple,  Til- 
lotson  at  Lincoln's  Inn,  Wake  and  Jeremy  Collier  at  Gray's  Inn, 
Burnet  at  the  Rolls,  Stillingfleet  at  Saint  Paul's  Cathedral, 
Patrick  at  Saint  Paul's  in  Covent  Garden,  Fovder  at  Saint 
Giles's,  Cripplegate,  Sliarp  at  Saint  Giles's  in  the  Fields,  Teni- 
son  at  Saint  Martin's,  Sprat  at  Saint  Margaret's,  Beveridge  at 
Saint  Peter's  in  Cornhill.  Of  these  twelve  men,  all  of  high 
note  in  ecclesiastical  history,  ten  became  Bishops,  and  four 
Archbishops.  Meanwhile  almost'  the  only  important  theologi- 
cal works  which  came  forth  from  a  rural  parsonage  were  those 
of  George  Bull,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Saint  David's  ;  and  Bull 
never  would  have  produced  those  works,  had  he  not  inherited 
an  estate,  by  the  sale  of  which  he  was  enabled  to  collect  a 
library,  such  as  probably  no  other  country  clergyman  in  Eng- 
land possessed.* 

Thus  the  Anglican  priesthood  was  divided  into  two  sections, 
which,  in  acquirements,  in  manners,  and  in  social  position, 
differed  widely  from  each  other.  One  section,  trained  for  cities 
and  courts,  comprised  men  familiar  with  all  ancient  and  modern 
learning ;  men  able  to  encounter  Hobbes  or  Bossuet  at  all  the 
weapons  of  controversy  ;  men  who  could,  in  their  sermons,  set 
forth  the  majesty  and  beauty  of  Christianity  with  such  justness 
of  thought,  and  such  energy  of  language,  that  the  indolent 
Charles  roused  himself  to  listen,  and  the  fastidious  Buckingharn 

*  Nelson's  I/lfe  of  Bull.  As  to  the  extreme  difficulty  ■which  the  country 
clergy  found  iu  i)rocuring  books,  see  the  Life  of  Thomas.Bray,  the  founder  of  tb^ 
Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel. 


304  HISTOKT    OF    ENGLAND. 

forgot  to  sneer ;  men  whose  address,  politeness,  and  knowledge 
of  the  world  qualified  them  to  manage  the  consciences  of  the 
wealthy  and  noble  ;  men  with  whom  Halifax  loved  to  discuss 
the  interests  of  empires,  and  from  whom  Dryden  was  not 
ashamed  to  own  that  he  had  learned  to  write.*  The  other  sec- 
tion was  destined  to  ruder  and  humbler  service.  It  was  dis- 
persed over  the  country,  and  consisted  chiefly  of  persons  not  at 
all  wealthier,  and  not  much  more  refined,  than  small  farmers  or 
upper  servants.  Yet  it  was  in  these  rustic  priests,  who  derived 
but  a  scanty  subsistence  from  their  tithe  sheaves  and  tithe  pigs, 
and  who  had  not  the  smallest  chance  of  ever  attaining  high  pro- 
fessional honours,  that  the  professional  spirit  was  strongest. 
Among  those  divines  who  were  the  boast  of  the  Universities 
and  the  delight  of  the  capital,  and  who  had  attained,  or  might 
reasonably  expect  to  attain,  opulence  and  lordly  rank,  a  party, 
respectable  iu  numbers,  and  more  respectable  in  character, 
leaned  towards  constitutional  principles  of  government,  lived 
on  friendly  terms  with  Presbyterians,  Independents,  and  Bap- 
tists, would  gladly  have  seen  a  full  toleration  granted  to  all 
Protestant  sects,  and  would  even  have  consented  to  make 
alterations  in  the  Liturgy,  for  the  purpose  of  conciliating 
honest  and  candid  Nonconformists.  But  such  latitudinarian- 
ism  was  held  in  horror  by  the  country  parson.  He  took,  in- 
deed, more  pride  in  his  ragged  gown  than  his  superiors  in 
their  lawn  and  their  scarlet  hoods.  The  very  consciousness 
that  there  was  little  in  his  worldly  circumstances  to  distinguish 
him  from  the  villagers  to  whom  he  preached  led  him  to  hold 
immoderately  high  the  dignity  of  that  sacerdotal  office  which 
was  his  single  title  to  reverence.  Having  lived  in  seclusion, 
and  having  had  little  opportunity  of  correcting  his  opinions  by 
reading  or  conversation,  he  held  and  taught  the  doctrines  of  in- 
defeasible hereditary  right,  of  passive  obedience,  and  of  non- 
resistance,  in  all  their  crude  al)surdity.  Having  been  long  en- 
gaged in   a  petty  war  against  the  neighbouring  dissenters,  he 

*  "  I  have  frequently  lieard  him  (Dryden)  own  with  pleasure,  that  if  he  had 
any  talent  for  English  prose  it  was  owing  to  his  liaving  often  read  the  wiitings  of 
tlie  great  Archbishop  Tillotson."— Cougreve's  Dedication  of  Drydeii's  Plays. 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  ,  305 

too  often  hated  them  for  the  wrong  which  he  had  done  them, 
and  found  no  fault  with  the  Five  Mile  Act  and  the  Conventicle 
Act,  except  that  those  odious  laws  had  not  a  sharper  edge. 
Whatever  influence  his  office  gave  him  was  exerted  Avith  pas- 
sionate zeal  on  the  Tory  side ;  and  that  influence  was  immense. 
It  would  be  a  great  error  to  imagine,  because  the  country  rec- 
tor was  in  general  not  regarded  as  a  gentleman,  because  he 
could  not  dare  to  aspire  to  the  hand  of  one  of  the  young  ladies 
at  the  manor  house,  because  he  was  not  asked  into  the  parlours 
of  the  great,  but  was  left  to  drink  and  smoke  with  grooms  and 
butlers,  that  the  power  of  the  clerical,  body  was  smaller  than  at 
present.  The  influence  of  a  class  is  by  no  means  proportioned 
to  the  consideration  which  the  members  of  that  class  enjoy  in 
their  individual  capacity.  A  Cardinal  is  a  much  more  exalted 
personage  than  a  begging  friar:  but  it  would  be  a  grievous 
mistake  to  suppose  that  the  College  of  Cardinals  has  exercised 
a  greater  dominion  over  the  public  mind  of  Europe  than  the 
Order  of  Saint  Francis.  In  Ireland,  at  present,  a  peer  holds  a 
far  higher  station  in  society  than  a  Roman  Catholic  priest :  yet 
there  are  in  JMunster  and  Connaught  few  covmties  where  a 
combination  of  priests  would  not  carry  an  election  a^;ainst  a 
combination  of  peers.  In  the  seventeenth  century  the  pulpit 
was  to  a  large  portion  of  the  population  what  the  periodical 
press  now  is.  Scarce  any  of  the  clowns  who  came  to  the  par- 
ish church  ever  saw  a  Gazette  or  a  political  pamphlet.  Ill  in- 
formed as  their  spiritual  pastor  might  be,  he  was  yet  better 
informed  than  themselves :  he  had  every  week  an  opportunity 
of  haranguing  them  ;  and  his  harangues  were  never  answered. 
At  every  important  conjuncture,  invecthes  against  the  "Whigs 
and  exhortations  to  obey  the  Lord's  anointed  resounded  at  once 
from  many  thousands  of  pulpits  ;  and  the  effect  was  formidable 
indeed.  Of  all  the  causes  which,  after  the  dissolution  of  the 
Oxford  Parliament,  produced  the  violent  reaction  against  the 
Exclusionists,  the  most  potent  seems  to  have  been  the  oratory 
of  the  country  clergy. 

The  power  which   the  country  gentleman   and  the   country 
clergyman  exercised  in  the  rural  districts  was  in  some  measure 

20 


306  BISTORT    OF    ENGLAND. 

counterbalanced  by  the  power  of  the  yeomanry,  an  eminently 
manly  and  truehearted  race.  The  jjetty  proprietors  who  cul- 
tivated their  own  fields  with  their  own  hands,  and  enjoyed  a 
modest  competence,  without  affecting  to  have  scutcheons  and 
crests,  or  aspiring  to  sit  on  the  bench  of  justice,  then  formed  a 
much  more  important  part  of  the  nation  tlian  at  present.  If 
we  may  trust  the  best  statistical  writers  of  that  age,  not  less 
than  a  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  proprietors,  who  with  their 
families  must  have  made  up  more  than  a  seventh  of  the  whole 
population,  derived  their  subsistence  from  little  freehold  estates. 
The  average  income  of  these  small  landholders,  an  income  made 
up  of  rent,  profit,  and  wages,  was  estimated  at  between  sixty 
and  seventy  pounds  a  year.  It  was  computed  that  the  number 
of  persons  who  tilled  their  own  land  was  greater  than  the  num- 
ber of  those  who  farmed  the  land  of  others.*  A  large  portion 
of  the  yeomanry  had,  from  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  leaned 
towards  Puritanism,  had,  in  the  civil  war,  taken  the  side  of  the 
Parliament,  had,  after  the  Restoration,  persisted  in  hearing 
Presbyterian  and  Independent  preachers,  had,  at  elections, 
strenuously  supported  the  Exclusionists,  and  had  continued, 
even  after  the  discovery  of  the  R3'e  House  plot  and  the  pro- 
scription of  the  Whig  leaders,  to  regard  Popery  and  arbitrary 
power  with  unmitigated  hostility. 

Great  as  has  been  the  change  in  the  rural  life  of  England 
since  the  Revolution,  the  change  which  has  come  to  pass  in  the 
cities  is  still  more  amazing.  At  present  above  a  sixth  part  of 
the  nation  is  crowded  into  i^rovincial  towns  gf  more  than  thirty 
thousand  inhabitants.  In  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second  no 
provincial  town  in  thS  kingdom  contained  thirty  thousand  in- 
habitants ;  and  only  four  provincial  towns  contained  so  many 
}  s  ten  thousand  inhabitants. 

Next  to  the  capital,  but  next  at  an  immense  distance,  stood 
".Bristol,  then  the  first  English  seaport,  and  Norwich,  then  the 
Hrst  English  manufacturing  town.  Both  have  since  that  time 
!)een  far  outstripped  by  younger  rivals ;  yet  both  have  madd 

'*  I  have  taken  Darenaufa  estimate,  wbioh  U  a  little  lovrer  tUan  £ing'9. 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1 G85.  307 

great  positive  advances.     Tlie  population  of   Bristol  has  quad- 
rupled.    Tlie  population  of  Norwich  has  more  than  doubled. 

Pepys,  who  visited  Bristol  eight  years  after  the  Restoration, 
was  struck  by  the  splendour  of  the  city.  But  his  standard  was 
not  high  ;  for  he  noted  down  as  a  wonder  the  circumstance  that, 
in  Bristol,  a  man  might  look  round  him  and  see  nothing  but 
houses.  It  seems  that,  in  no  other  place  with  which  he  was  ac- 
quainted, except  London,  did  the  buildings  completely  shut  out 
the  woods  and  fields.  Large  as  Bristol  might  then  appear,  it  oc- 
cupied but  a  very  small  portion  of  the  area  on  which  it  now 
stands.  A  few  churches  of  eminent  beauty  rose  out  of  a  laby- 
rinth of  narrow  lanes  built  upon  vaults  of  no  great  solidity.  If 
a  coach  or  a  cart  entered  those  alleys,  there  was  danger  that  it 
would  be  wedged  between  the  houses,  and  danger  also  that  it 
would  break  in  the  cellars.  Goods  were  therefore  conveyed 
'about  the  town  almost  exclusively  in  trucks  drawn  by  dogs  ;  and 
the  richest  inhabitants  exhibited  their  wealth,  not  by  riding  in 
gilded  carriages,  but  by  walking  the  streets  with  trains  of  ser- 
vants in  rich  liveries,  and  by  keeping  tables  loaded  with  good 
cheer.  The  pomp  of  the  christenings  and  burials  far  exceeded 
what  was  seen  at  any  other  place  in  England.  The  hospitality 
of  the  city  was  widely  renowned,  and  especially  the  collations 
with  which  the  sugar  refiners  regaled  their  visitors.  The  repast 
was  dressed  in  the  furnace,  and  was  accompanied  by  a  rich  bev- 
erage made  of  the  best  Spanish  wine,  and  celebrated  over  the 
whole  kingdom  as  Bristol  milk.  This  luxury  was  supported  by 
a  thriving  trade  with  the  North  American  plantations  and  with 
the  West  Indies.  The  passion  for  colonial  traffic  was  so  strong 
that  there  was  scarcely  a  small  shopkeeper  in  Bristol  who  had 
not  a  venture  on  board  of  some  ship  bound  for  Virginia  or  the 
Antilles.  Some  of  these  ventures  indeed  were  not  of  the  most 
honourable  kind.  There  was,  in  the  Transatlantic  possessions 
of  the  crown,  a  great  demand  for  labour;  and  this  demand  was 
partly  supplied  by  a  system  of  crimping  and  kidnapping  at  the 
principal  P^nglish  seaports.  Nowhere  was  this  system  in  such 
active  and  extensive  operation  as  at  Bristol.  Even  the  first 
magistrates  of  that  city  were  not  ashamed  to  enrich  themselves 


308  HISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND. 

by  so  odious  a  commerce.  The  number  of  houses  appears,  from 
the  returns  of  the  hearth  money,  to  have  been  in  the  year  1685, 
jufct  five  thousand  three  hundred.  We  can  hardly  suppose  the 
number  of  persons  in  a  house  to  have  been  greater  than  in  the 
city  of  London ;  and  in  the  city  of  London  we  learn  from  the  best 
authority  that  there  were  then  fifty-five  persons  to  ten  houses. 
The  population  of  Bristol  must  therefore  have  been  about 
twenty-nine  thousand  souls.* 

Norwich  was  the  capital  of  a  large  and  fruitful  province. 
It  was  the  residence  of  a  Bishop  and  of  a  Chapter.  It  was  the 
chief  seat  of  the  chief  manufacture  of  the  realm.  Some  men 
distinguished  b}^  learning  and  science  had  recently  dwelt  there ; 
and  no  place  in  the  kingdom,  except  the  capital  and  the  L'niver- 
sities,  had  more  attractions  for  the  curious.  The  library,  the 
museum,  the  aviary,  and  the  botanical  garden  of  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  were  thought  by  Fellows  of  the  Royal  Society  well 
worthy  of  a  long  pilgrimage.  Norwich  had  ako  a  court  in 
miniature.  In  the  heart  of  the  city  stood  an  old  palace  of  the 
Dukes  of  Noil'olk,  said  to  be  the  largest  town  house  in  the 
kingdom  out  of  London.  In  this  mansion,  to  which  were  an- 
nexed a  tennis  court,  a  bowling  green,  and  a  wilderness  stretch- 
ing along  the  banks  of  the  Wansum,  the  noble  family  of  How- 
ard frequently  resided,  and  kept  a  state  resembling  that  of 
petty  sovereigns.  Drink  was  served  to  guests  in  goblets  of  pure 
gold.  The  very  tongs  and  shovels  were  of  silver.  Pictures  by 
Italian  masters  adorned  the  walls.  The- cabinets  were  filled  with 
a  fine  collection  of  gems  purchased  by  that  Earl  of  Arundel 
whose  marbles  are  now  among  the  ornaments  of  Oxford.  Here, 
in  the  year  1671,  Charles  and  his  court  were  sumptuously  en- 
tertained.    Here,  too,  all  comers  w^re  annually  welcomed,  from 

•  Evelyn's  Diarj-,  June  27,  1654  ;  Pepys's  Diary,  June  13,  1C68  Koger  i-Torth's 
Lives  of  Lord  Keeper  Guildford,  and  of  Sir  Dudley  Korth  ;  Petty's  Political 
Arithmetic.  I  have  taken  Petty's  facts,  but,  in  drawing  inferences  from  them, 
I  have  been  guided  by  King  and  Davenant,  who,  though  not  abler  men  than  he, 
had  the  advantage  of  comin"  nfter  him.  As  1o  the  kidnapping  for  which  Bristol 
was  infamous,  see  North's  Lifo  of  Guildford,  121,  216,  .and  the  harangue  of  Jef- 
freys on  the  pubject,  in  the  Impartial  Histor>-  of  his  Life  and  Death,  printed  with 
the  Bloody  Assizes.  His  style  was,  as  ubup.I,  coarse  ;  but  I  cannot  reckon  tha 
reprimand  which  he  gave  to  the  magistrates  of  Bristol  among  his  crimes. 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  309 

Christmas  to  Twelfth  Niglit.  Ale  flowed  in  oceans  for  the  popu- 
hxce.  Three  coaches,  one  of  which  had  heen  built  at  a  cost  of 
five  hundred  pounds  to  contain  fourteen  persons,  were  sent  every 
afternoon  round  the  city  to  bring  ladies  to  the  festivities  ;  and 
the  dances  were  always  followed  by  a  luxurious  banquet.  When 
the  Duke  of  Norfolk  came  to  Norwich,  he  was  greeted  like  a 
King  returning  to  his  caj^ital.  The  bells  of  the  Cathedral  and 
of  St.  Peter  Mancroft  were  rung :  the  guns  of  the  castle  were 
fired  ;  and  the  Mayor  and  Aldermen  waited  on  their  illustrious 
fellow  citizen  with  complimentary  addresses.  In  the  year  1693 
the  population  of  Norwich  was  found  by  actual  enumeration,  to 
be  between  twenty-eight  and  twenty-nine  thousand  souls.* 

Far  below  Norwich,  but  still  high  in  dignity  and  impor- 
tance, were  some  other  ancient  capitals  of  shires.  In  that  age 
it  was  seldom  that  a  country  gentleman  went  up  with  his  family 
to  London.  The  county  town  was  his  metropolis.  He  some- 
times made  it  his  residence  during  part  of  the  year.  At  all 
events,  he  was  often  attracted  thither  by  business  and  pleasure, 
by  assizes,  quarter  sessions,  elections,  musters  of  militia,  festi- 
vals, and  races.  There  were  the  halls  where  the  judges,  robed 
in  scarlet  and  escorted  by  javelins  and  trumpets,  opened  the 
King's  commission  twice -a  year.  Tliere  were  the  markets  at 
wliich  the  corn,  the  cattle,  the  wool,  and  the  hops  of  the  sur- 
I'ounding  csuutry  were  exposed  to  sale.  There  were  the  great 
fairs  to  which  merchants  came  down  from  London,  and  where  the 
rural  dealer  laid  in  his  annual  stores  of  sugar,  stationery, 
cutlery,  and  muslin.  There  were  the  shops  at  which  the  best 
families  of  the  neighbourhood  bought  'grocery  and  millinery. 
Some  of  these  places  derived  dignity  from  interesting  historical 
recollections,  from  cathedrals  decorated  by  all  the  art  and 
magnificence  of  the  middle  ages,  from  palaces  where  a  long 
succession  of  prelates  had  dwelt,  from  closes  surrounded  by  the 
venerable  abodes  of  deans  and  canons,  and  from  castles  which 
had   in   the  old   time   repelled   the   Nevilles   or  de  Veres,  and 

*  Fuller's  Worthies  ;  Evelyn's  Diary,  Oct.  17,  1G7!  ;  Journal  of  T.  Browne,  son 
f>f  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  Jan.  16G3-4  ;  Blomefield's  History  of  Norfolk  ;  History  of 
the  City  and  County  of  Norwich,  2  vols.  1768. 


310  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

* 

which  bore  more  recent  traces  of   the  vengeance  of  Rupert  or 
of  Cromwell. 

Conspicuous  amongst  these  interesting  cities  were  York, 
the  capital  of  the  north,  and  Exeter,  the  capital  of  the  west. 
Neither  can  have  contained  much  more  than  ten  thousand 
inhabitants.  Worcester,  the  queen  of  the  cider  land,  had  but 
eight  thousand ;  Nottingham  probably  as  many.  Gloucester, 
renowned  for  that  resolute  defence  which  had  been  fatal  to 
Charles  the  First,  had  certainly  between  four  and  five  thou- 
sand ;  Derby  not  quite  four  thousand.  Shrewsbury  was  the 
chief  place  of  an  extensive  and  fertile  district.  The  Court  of 
the  Marches  of  Wales  was  held  there.  In  the  language  of  the 
gentry  many  miles  round  the  Wrekin,  to  go  to  Shrewsbury  was 
to  go  to  town.  The  provincial  wits  and  beauties  imitated,  as 
well  as  they  could,  the  fashions  of  Saint  James's  Park,  in  the 
walks  along  the  side  of  the  Severn.  The  inhabitants  were 
about  seven  thousand.* 

The  population  of  every  one  of  these  places  has,  since  the 
Revolution,  much  more  than  doubled.  The  population  of  some 
has  multiplied  sevenfold.  The  streets  have  been  almost  entirely 
rebuilt.  Slate  has  succeeded  to  thatch,  and  brick  to  timber 
The  pavements  and  the  lamps,  the  display  of  wealth  in  the 
principal  shops,  and  the  luxurious  neatness  of  the  dwellings 
occupied  by  the  gentry  would,  in  the  seventeenth  cgntury,  have 
seemed  miraculous.  Yet  is  the  relative  importance  of  the  old 
capitals  of  counties  by  no  means  what  it  was.  Younger  towns, 
towns  which  are  rarely  or  never  mentioned  in  our  early  history 

*  The  population  of  York  appears,  from  the  return  of  baptisms  and  burials, 
in  Drake's  History,  to  have  been  about  13,000  in  1730.  Exeter  had  only  17,000 
inhabitants  in  1801.  The  population  of  V^oreester  was  numbered  just  before  the 
siege  in  1646.  See  Nash's  Historj' of  Worcestershire.  I  have  made  allowancei 
for  the  increase  which  must  be  supposed  to  have  taken  place  in  forty  years.  In, 
1740,  the  population  of  Nottingham  was  found,  by  enumeration,  to  be  just  10.000.' 
See  Bering's  Histeiy.  The  population  of  Gloucester  may  readily  be  inferred 
from  the  number  of  houses  which  King  found  in  the  returns  of  hearth  money, 
and  from  the  number  of  births  and  burials  which  is  given  in  Atkyns's  History. 
The  population  of  Derby  was  4000  hi  1712.  See  "Wolley's  MS.  History,  quoted  in 
Lyson's  Magna  Britannia.  The  population  or  Shrewsbury  was  ascertained,  in 
1695,  by  .ictual  enumeration.  As  to  the  gaieties  of  Shrewsbury,  see  Farquhar's 
Recruiting  Officer.  Farquhar's  description  is  borne  out  by  a  ballad  in  the  Pepyslar 
Library,  of  which  the  burden  is  "  Shrewsbury  for  me." 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  ^il 

»imA  which  sent  no  representatives  to  our  early  Parliaments, 
ha*^e,  within  the  memory  of  persons  still  living,  grown  to  a 
greatness  which  this  generation  contemplates  with  wonder  and 
pride,  not  unaccompanied  by  awe  and  anxiety. 

The  most  eminent  of  these  towns  were  indeed  known  in  the 
seventeenth  century  as  respectable  seats  of  industry.  Nay, 
their  rapid  progress  and  their  vast  opulence  were  then  some- 
times described  in  language  which  seems  ludicrous  to  a  man 
who  has  seen  their  present  grandeur.  One  of  the  most  popu- 
lous and  prosperous  among  them  was  Manchester.  Manchester 
had  been  required  by  the  Protector  to  send  one  representative 
to  his  Parliament,  and  was  mentioned  by  writers  of  the  time  of 
Charles  the  Second  as  a  busy  and  opulent  place.  Cotton  had, 
during  half  a  century,  been  brought  thither  from  Cyprus  and 
Smyrna;  but  the  manufacture  was  in  its  infancy.  Whitney 
had  not  yet  taught  how  the  i-aw  material  might  be  furnished  in 
quantities  almost  fabulous.  Arkwright  had  not  yet  taught  how 
it  might  be  worked  up  with  a  speed  and  precision  which  seem 
magical.  The  whole  annual  import  did  not,  at  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  amount  to  two  millions  of  pounds,  a  quan- 
tity which  would  now  hardly  supply  the  demand  of  forty-eight 
hours.  That  wonderful  emporium,  which  in  population  and 
wealth  far  surpasses  capitals  so  much  renowned  as  Berlin, 
Madrid,  and  Lisbon,  was  then  a  mean  and  ill  built  market  town 
containing  under  six  thousand  people.  It  then  had  not  a  single 
press.  It  now  supports  a  hundred  printing  establishments.  It 
then  had  not  a  single  coach.  It  now  supports  twenty  coach- 
makers.* 

Leeds  was  already  the  chief  seat  of  the  woollen  manufactures 
of  Yorkshire ;  but  the  elderly  inhabitants  could  still  remember 
the  time  when  the  first  brick  house,  then  and  long  after  called 
the  Red  House,  was  built.     They  boasted  loudly  of  their  in- 

*  Blome's  Britannia,  167.3  ;  Aikin's  Countiy  round  Manchester  ;  Manchester 
Directory,  1845  ;  Baines,  History  of  the  Cotton  Manufacture.  The  best  Informa- 
tion which  I  liave  been  able  to  find,  touching  the  population  of  Manchester  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  is  contained  in  a  paper  drawn  up  by  the  Reverend  R. 
Parklngon,  and  published  in  the  Journal  of  the  Statistical  Society  for  Octobej 
1842. 


312  HiSTonr  of  England. 

creasing  wealth,  and  of  the  immense  sales  of  cloth  which  took 
place  in  the  open  air  on  the  bridge.  Hundreds,  nay  thousands 
of  pounds,  had  been  paid  down  in  the  course  of  one  busy  mai'ket 
day.  The  rising  importance  of  Leeds  had  attracted  the  notice 
of  snccessive  governments.  Charles  the  First  had  c^ranted  mu- 
nicipal privileges  to  the  town.  Oliver  had  invited  it  to  send  one 
member  to  the  House  of  Commons.  But  from  the  returns  of  the 
hearth  money  it  seems  certain  that  the  whole  population  of  the 
borough,  an  extensive  district  which  contains  many  hamlets, 
did  not,  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Secondl,  exceed  seven  thou 
eand  souls.  In  1841  there  were  more  thau  a  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand.* 

About  a  day's  journey  goutUof  "Leeds,  on  the  verge  of  a  wild 
moorland  tract,  lay  an  ancient  manor,  now  rich  with  cultivation, 
then  barren  and  unenclosed,  which  was  known  by  the  name  of 
Hallamshire.  Iron  abounded  there ;  and,  from  a  very  early 
period,  the  rude  whittles  fabricated  there  had  been  sold  all  ovei 
the  kingdom.  They  had  indeed  been  mentioned  by  Geoffrey 
Chaucer  in  one  of  his  Canterbury  Tales.  But  the  manufacture 
appears  to  have  made  little  progress  during  the  three  centuries 
which  followed  his  time.  This  languor  may  perhaps  be  explain- 
ed by  the  fact  that  the  trade  was,  during  almost  the  whole  of 
this  long  period,  subject  to  such  regulations  as  the  lord  and  his 
court  leet  thought  fit  to  impose.  The  more  delicate  kinds  of 
cutlery  were  either  made  in  the  capital  or  brought  from  the 
Continent.  Indeed  it  was  not  till  the  reign  of  George  the  First 
that  the  English  surgeons  ceased  to  import  from  France  those 
exquisitely  fine  blades  which  are  required  for  operations  on  the 
human  frame.  Most  of  the  Hallamshire  forges  were  collected 
in  a  market  town  which  had  sprung  up  near  the  castle  of  the 
proprietor,  and  which,  in  the  reign  of  James  the  First,  had  been 
a  singularly  miserable  place,  containing  about  two  thousand  in- 
habitants, of  whom  a  third  were  half  starved  and  half  naked  beg- 
gars.    It  seems  certain  from  the   parochial  registers  that  the 

•  Thoresby's  DucatusLeodensIs  ;  Wliitalcer's  Loidls  and  Elmete  ;  Wardell'i 
Municipal  History  of  tha  Borough  of  Leeds.  (1848.)  In  1851  Leeds  had  172,00i 
Inhabitants.  (1857.) 


STATE   OP   ENGLAND    IN    1685.  315 

population  did  not  amount  to  four  thousand  at  the  end  of  the 
reign  of  Charles  the  Second.  The  effects  of  a  species  of  toi* 
singularly  unfavourable  to  the  health  and  vigour  of  the  humai< 
frame  were  at  once  discerned  by  every  traveller.  A  large  propor 
tion  of  the  people  had  distorted  limbs.  This  is  that  Sheffield 
which  now,  with  its  dependencies,  contains  a  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand  souls,  and  which  sends  forth  its  admirable  knives,  razors, 
and  lancets  to  the  farthest  ends  of  the  world.* 

Birmingham  had  not  been  thought  of  sufficient  importance 
to  return  a  member  to  Oliver's  Parliament.  Yet  the  manufac- 
turers of  Birmingham  were  already  a  busy  and  thriving  race. 
They  boasted  that  their  hardware  was  highly  esteemed,  not  in- 
deed as  now,  at  Pekin  and  Lima,  at  Bokhara  and  Timbuctoo, 
but  in  Loudon,  and  even  as  far  off  as  Ireland.  They  had  ac- 
quired a  less  honourable  renown  as  coiners  of  bad  money.  In 
allusion  to  their  spurious  groats,  some  Tory  wit  had  fixed  on 
demagogues,  who  hypocritically  affected  zeal  against  Popery, 
the  nickname  of  Birminghams.  Yet  in  1685  the  population, 
which  is  now  little  less  than  two  hundi'ed  thousand,  did  not 
amount  to  four  thousand.  Birmingham  buttons  were  just 
beginning  to  be  known  ;  of  Birmingham  guns  nobody  had  yet 
heard  ;  and  the  place  whence,  two  generations  later,  the  mag- 
nificent editions  of  Baskerville  went  forth  to  astonish  all  the 
librarians  of  Europe,  did  not  contain  a  single  regular  shop 
where  a  Bible  or  an  almanack  could  be  bought.  On  Market 
days  a  bookseller  named  Michael  Johnson,  the  father  of  the 
great  Samuel  Johnson,  came  over  from  Lichfield,  and  opened 
a  stall  during  a  few  hours.  This  supply  of  literature  was  long 
found  equal  to  the  demand,  f 

*  Hunter's  History  of  H.-illamshire.  (1848.)  In  1851  the  population  of  Sheffield 
had  increased  to  1.35,000.  (1857.) 

t  Blome's  Britannia,  T^r.T  ;  Dugdale's  "WarwicksLire  ;  North's  Fxamen,  321; 
Preface  to  Absalom  and  Achitophel ;  lint  ton's  History  of  Birmingham  ;  Boswell'a 
Xife  of  Johnson.  In  1690  the  burials  at  Birmingham  were  150,  the  baptisms  1^5, 
I  think  it  probable  that  the  annual  mortality  was  little  less  than  one  in  twenty 
five.  In  London  it  was  considerably  greater.  A  historian  of  Nottingham,  hall 
a  century  later,  boasted  of  the  extraordinary  salubrity  of  his  town,  where  tbp  nn 
nual  mortality  was  one  in  thirty.  See  Bering's  F'story  of  Nottingham-  (1S48.) 
In  1851  the  population  of  Birmingham  had  increased  to  232,000.  (1857.) 


814  HISTORI    OF   ENGLAND. 

These  four  chief  seats  of  our  great  manufactures  deserve 
especial  meation.     It  would  be  tedious  to  enumerate  all  the 
populous  and  opulent  hives  of  industry  which,  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  ago,  were  hamlets  without  parish  churches,  or  deso- 
late moors,  inhabited  only  by  grouse  and  wild  deer.     Nor  has 
the  change  beea  less  signal  in  those  outlets  by  which  the  pro- 
ducts of  the  English  looms  and  forges  are  poured  forth  over  the 
whole  world.     At  present  Liverpool  contains  more  than  three 
hundred  thousand  inhabitants.     The  shipping  registered  at  her 
port  amounts  to  between  four  and  five  hundred  thousand  tons. 
Into  her  custom  house  has  been  repeatedly  paid  in  one  year  a 
6um  more  than  thrice  as  great  as  the  whole  income  of  the  Eng- 
lish crown  in  1 685.     The  receipts  of  her  post  oflTice,  even  since 
the  great  reduction  of  the  duty,  exceed  the  sum  which  the  post- 
age of  the  whole  kingdom  yielded  to  the  Duke  of  York.     Her 
endless  docks,  quays,  and  warehouses  are  among  the  wonders  of 
the  world.     Yet  even  those  docks  and  quays   and  warehouses 
seem  hardly  to  suffice  for  the  gigantic  trade  of  the  Mersey  ;  and 
already  a  rival  city  is  growing  fast  on   the  opposite  shore.     In 
the  days  of  Charles  the  Second  Liverpool  was  described  as  a 
rising  town  which  had  recently  made  great  advances,  and  which 
maintained  a  profitable  intercourse  with  Ireland  and  with   the 
BUgar  colonies.     The  customs  had  multiplied  eight-fold  within 
sixteen  years,  and  amounted  to  what  was  then  considered  as  the 
immense  sum  of  fifteen   thousand   pounds  annually.     But   the 
population  can  hardly  have  exceeded  four  thousand  :  the  ship- 
ping was  about  fourteen  hundred  tons,  less  than  the  tonnage  of 
a  single  modern   Indiaman  of  the   first  class  ;  and  the   whole 
number  of  seamen  belonging  to  the  port  cannot  be  estimated  at 
more  than  two  hundred.* 

Such  has  been  the  progress  of  those  towns  where  wealth  is 
created  and  accumulated.  Not  less  rapid  has  been  the  progress 
of  towns  of  a  very  different  kind,  towns  in  which  wealth,  created 

•  Blome's  Britannia  ;  Gregson's  Antiquities  of  the  County  Palatine  and 
Duchy  of  Lancaster,  Part  II.  ;  Petition  from  Liverpool  in  the  Privy  Council 
Book,  May  10,  1686.  In  1690  the  hurials  at  Liverpool  were  151,  the  baptisms  120. 
In  1844  the  net  receipt  of  the  customs  at  Liverpool  was  4.365,52fii.  1*.  S4-  ilSW^ 
la  1£51  Liverpool  contained  375,000  inhabitants,  (185J4 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  315 

and  accumulated  elsewhere,  is  expended  for  purposes  of  health 
and  recreation.  Some  of  the  most  remarkable  of  these  gay 
places  have  sprung  into  existence  since  the  time  of  the  Stuarts. 
Cheltenham  is  now  a  greater  city  than  any  which  the  kingdom 
contained  in  the  seventeenth  century,  London  alone  excepted. 
But  in  the  •  seventeenth  century,  and  at  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth,  Cheltenham  was  mentioned  by  local  historians  merely 
as^a  rural  parish  lying  under  the  Cotswold  Hills,  and  affording 
good  ground  both  for  tillage  and  pasture.  Corn  grew  and  cat- 
tle browsed  over  the  space  now  covered  by  that  long  succession 
of  streets  and  villas.*  Brighton  was  described  as  a  place  which 
had  once  been  thriving,  which  had  possessed  many  small  fishing 
barks,  and  which  had,  when  at  the  height  of  prosperity,  contain- 
ed above  two  thousand  inhabitants,  but  which  was  sinking  fast 
into  decay.  The  sea  was  gradually  gaining  on  the  buildings, 
which  at  length  almost  entirely  disappeared.  Ninety  years 
awo  the  ruins  of  an  old  fort  were  to  be  seen  lying  among  the 
pebbles  and  seaweed  on  the  beach  ;  and  ancient  men  could  still 
point  out  the  traces  of  foundations  on  a  spot  where  a  street  of 
more  than' a  hundred  huts  had  been  swallowed  up  by  the  waves. 
So  desolate  was  the  place  after  this  calamity,  that  the  vicarage 
was  thought  scarcely  worth  having.  A  few  poor  fishermen, 
however,  still  continued  to  dry  their  nets  on  those  cliffs,  on 
which  now  a  town,  more  than  twice  as  large  and  populous  as 
the  Bristol  of  the  Stuarts,  presents,  mile  after  mile,  its  gay  and 
fantastic  front  to  the  sea.f 

England,  however,  was  not,  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
destitute  of  watering  places.  The  gentry  of  Derbyshire  and  of 
the  neighbouring  counties  repaired  to  Buxton,  where  tliey  were 
lodged  in  low  rooms  under  bare  rafters,  and  regaled  with  oat- 
cake, and  with  a  viand  which  the  hosts  called  mutton,  but  which 
the  guests  suspected  to  be  dog.  A  single  good  house  stood  near 
the  spring.^     Tunbridge  "Wells,  lying  within  a  day's  journey  of 

*  Atkyns's  Gloucestershire. 

t  Magna  Britannia  ;  Grose's  Antiquities  ;  New  Brightbelmstone    Directory, 
1770. 

i  Tour  in  Derbyslijre,  by  Thomas  Browne,  son  of  Sir  Thomas, 


SIQ  HISTORY,  OF   ENGLAND. 

the  capital,  and  in  one  of  the  richest  and  most  highly  civilised 
parts  of  the  kingdom,  had  mucii  greater  attractions.  At  present 
we  see  there  a  town  which  would,  a  hundred  and  sixty  years 
ago,  have  ranked,  in  population,  fourth  or  fifth  among  the  towns 
of  England.  The  brilliancy  of  the  shops  and  the  luxury  of 
the  private  dwellings  far  surpasses  anything  that  England 
could  then  show.  When  the  court,  soon  after  the  Restoration, 
visited  Tunbridge  Wells,  there  was  no  town  :  but,  within  a 
mile  of  the  spring,  rustic  cottages,  somewhat  cleaner  and 
neater  than  the  ordinary  cottages  of  that  time,  were  scattered  over 
the  heath.  Some  of  these  cabins  were  movable  and  were 
carried  on  sledges  from  one  part  of  the  common  to  another. 
To  these  huts  men  of  fashion,  wearied  with  the  din  and  smoke 
of  London,  sometimes  came  in  the  summer  to  breathe  fresh  air, 
and  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  rural  life.  During  the  season  a  kind 
of  fair  was  daily  held  near  the  fountain.  The  wives  and  daugh- 
ters of  the  Kentish  farmers  came  from  the  neisrhbourinsr  villages 
with  cream,  cherries,  wheatears,  and  quails.  To  chaffer  with 
them,  to  flirt  with  them,  to  praise  their  straw  hats  and  tight 
heels,  was  a  refreshing  pastime  to  voluptuaries  sick  of  the  airs  of 
actresses  and  maids  of  honour.  Milliners,  toymen,  and  jewellers 
came  down  from  London,  and  opened  a  bazaar  under  the  trees. 
In  one  booth  the  politician  might  find  his  coffee  and  the  London 
Gazette  ;  in  another  were  gamblers  playing  deep  at  basset ;  and, 
on  fine  evenings,  the  fiddles  were  in  attendance,  and  there  were 
morris  dances  on  the  elastic  turf  of  the  bowling  green.  In 
1685  a  subscription  had  just  been  raised  among  those  who  fre~ 
quented  the  wells  for  building  a  church,  which  the  Tories,  who 
then  domineered  everywhere,  insisted  on  dedicating  to  Saint 
Charles  the  Martyr.* 

But  at  the  head  of  the  English  watering  places,  without  a 
rival,  was  Bath.  The  springs  of  that  city  had  been  renowned 
from  the  days  of  the  Romans.  It  hnd  been,  during  many  cen- 
turies, the  seat   of  a  Bishop.     The   sick  repaired  thither  from 

•  Memoires  de  Grammoiit ;  Hasted's  Historv  of  Kent ;  Tunbridge  Wella,  a 
Comedy,  lfi78;  Cp.ugt.on's  Tni)bridgia,l}a.,  1668  ;  M^teUus.  a  poem  en  Tunbridge 
Wells,  1693. 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1635.  317 

every  part  of  the  realm.  The  King  sometimes  held  his  court 
there.  Nevertheless,  Bath  was  then  a  maze  of  only  four  or  five 
hundred  houses,  crowded  within  an  old  wall  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  Avon.  Pictures  of  what  were  considered  as  the  finest  of 
those  houses  are  still  extant,  and  greatly  resemble  the  lowest 
rag  shops  and  pothouses  of  Ratcliffe  Highway  Travellers 
indeed  complained  loudly  of  the  narrowness  and  meanness  of  the 
streets.  That  beautiful  city  which  charms  even  eyes  familiar 
with  the  masterpieces  of  Bramaiite  and  Palladio,  and  which  the 
genms  of  Anstey  and  of  Smollett,  of  Frances  Burney  and  of 
Jane  Austen,  has  made  classic  ground,  had  not  begun  to  exist. 
Milsom  Street  itself  was  an  open  field  lying  far  beyond  the  walls  ; 
and  hedgerows  mtersected  the  space  which  is  now  covered  by 
the  Crescent  and  the  Circus.  The  poor  patients  to  whom  the 
waters  had  been  recommended  lay  on  straw  in  a  place  which,  to 
use  the  language  of  a  contemporary  physician,  was  a  covert 
rather  than  a  lodo-ini;:.  As  to  the  comforts  and  luxuries  which 
were  to  be  found  in  the  interior  of  the  houses  of  Bath  by  the 
fashionable  visitors  who  resorted  thither  in  search  of  health  or 
amusement,  we  possess  information  more  complete  and  minute 
than  can  generally  be  obtained  on  such  subjects.  .  A  writer  who 
published  an  account  of  that  city  about  sixty  years  after  the 
Revolution  has  accurately  desci-ibed  the  changes  which  had 
taken  place  within  his  own  recollection.  He  assures  us  that,  in 
his  younger  days,  the  gentlemen  who  visited  the  springs  slept 
in  rooms  hardly  as  good  as  the  garrets  which  he  lived  to  see 
occupied  by  footmen.  The  floors  of  the  dining  rooms  were 
uncarpeted,  and  were  coloured  brown  with  a  wash  made  of  soot 
and  small  beer,  in  order  to  hide  the  dirt.  Not  a  wainscot  was 
painted.  Not  a  hearth  or  a  chimneypiece  was  of  marble.  A 
slab  of  common  free-stone  and  fire  irons  which  had  cost  from 
three  to  four  shillings  were  thought  sufficient  for  any  fireplace. 
The  best  apartments  were  hung  with  coarse  woollen  stuflf,  and 
were  furnished  with  rushbottomed  chairs.  Reader*  who  take 
an  interest  in  the  progress  of  civilisation  and  of  the  useful  arts 
will  be  grateful  to  the  humble  topographer  who  has  recorded 
these  facts,  and  will  perhaps  wish  that  historians  of  far  higher 


318  HISTORY    OK    ENGLAND. 

pretensions  had  sometimes  spared  a  few  pages  from  military 
evolution  and  political  intrigues,  for  the  purpose  of  letting  us 
know  how  the  parlours  and  bedchambers  of  our  ancestors  looked.* 
The  position  of  London,  relatively  to  the  other  towns  of  the 
empire,  was,  in  the  time  of  Chai'les  the  Second,  far  higher  than 
at  present,  For  at  present  the  population  of  London  is  little 
moi'e  than  six  times  the  population  of  Manchester  or  of  Liver- 
pool, In  the  days  of  Charles  the  Second  the  population  of 
London  was  more  than  seventeen  times  the  population  of  Bristol 
or  of  Norwich.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  any  other  instance 
can  be  mentioned  of  a  great  kingdom  in  which  the  fii'st  city  was 
more  than  seventeen  times  as  large  as  the  second.  There  is 
reason  to  believe  that,  in  1685,  London  had  been,  during  about 
half  a  century,  the  most  populous  capital  in  Europe.  The 
inhabitants,  who  are  now  at  least  nineteen  hundred  thousand, 
were  then  probably  little  more  than  half  a  million. f  London 
had  in  the  world  only  one  commercial  rival,  now  long  ago  out- 
stripped, the  mighty  and  opulent  Amsterdam.  English  writers 
boasted  of  the  forest  of  masts  and  yardarms  which  covered  the 
river  from  the  Bridge  to  the  Tower,  and  of  the  stupendous  sums 
which  were  collected  at  the  Custom  House  in  Thames  Street. 
There  is,  indeed,  no  doubt  that  the  trade  of  the  metropolis  then 
bore  a  far  greater  proportion  than  at  present  to  the  whole  trade 
of  the  country;  yet  to  our  generation  the  honest  vaunting  of 
our  ancestors  must  appear  almost  ludicrous.  The  shipping 
which  they  thought  inci'edibly  great  appears  not  to  have  ex- 
ceeded seventy  thousand  tons.  This  was,  indeed,  then  moi'e 
than  a  third  of  the  whole  tonnage  of  the  kingdom,  but  is  now 
less  than  a  fourth  of  the  tonnage  of  Newcastle,  and  is  nearly 
lequalTed  by  the  tonnage  of  the  steam  vessels  of  the  Thames. 

*  See  Wood's  History  of  Bath,  1749;  Evelyn's  Diary,  June  27,  1654;  Pepys's  Diary, 
.June  12j  1668;  Stukeley's  Itinerarium  Curiosnm;  Collinson's  Somersetshire;  Dr. 
Pelrce's  History*  and  Memoirs  of  the  Bath,  1713,  Book  I,  chap,  viii,  obs.  2,  1684.  I 
have  consulted  several  old  maps  and  pictures  of  Bath,  particularly  one  curious  map 
which  is  surrounded  by  views  of  the  principal  buildings.    It  bears  the  date  of  1717. 

+  According  to  King  530,000  (1848).  In  1851  the  population  of  London  exceeded 
2.300,000.    (1857.) 


STATE    OF    KNOLANl)    IN     1685.  819 

The  customs  of  Londou  amounted,  in  1685,  to  about  three  hun- 
dred and  th:r.y  thousand  pounds  a  year.  In  our  time  the  net 
duty  paid  annually,  at  the  same  place,  exceeds  ten  millions.* 

Whoever  examines  the  maps  of  London  which  were  pub-  j3 
lished  towards  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second 
will  see  that  only  the  nucleus  of  the  present  capital  then  ex- 
isted. The  town  did  not,  as  now,  fade  by  imperceptible  degrees 
into  the  country.  No  long  avenues  of  villas,  embowered  in 
lilacs  and  laburnums,  extended  from  the  great  centre  of  wealth 
and  civilisation  almost  to  the  boundaries  of  Middlesex  and  far 
into  the  heart  of  Kent  and  Surrey.  In  the  east,  no  part  of  the 
immense  line  of  warehouses  and  artificial  lakes  wiiich  now 
stretches  from  the  Tower  to  Blackwall  had  even  been  projected. 
On  the  west,  scarcely  one  of  those  stately  piles  of  buildiug 
which  are  inhabited  by  the  noble  and  wealthy  was  in  existence ; 
and  Chelsea,  which  is  now  peopled  by  more  than  forty  thousand 
human  beings,  was  a  quiet  country  village  with  about  a  thou- 
sand inhabitants.!  On  the  north,  cattle  fed,  and  sportsmen 
wandered  with  dogs  and  guns,  over  the  site  of  the  borough  of 
Marylebone,  and  over  far  the  greater  part  of  the  space  now 
covered  by  the  boroughs  of  Finsbury  and  of  tlie  Tower  Hamlets. 
Islington  was  almost  a  solitude ;  and  poets  loved  to  contrast  its 
silence  and  repose  with  the  din  and  turmoil  of  the  monster 
London,  t  On  the  south  the  capital  is  now  connected  with  its 
suburb  by  several  bridges,  not  inferior  in  magnificence  and 
solidity  to  the  noblest  works  of  the  Ccesars.  In  1685,  a  single 
line  of  irregular  ai-ches,  overhung  by  piles  of  mean  and  crazy 
houses,  and  garnished,  after  a  fashion  worthy  of  the  naked  bar- 
barians of  Dahomy,  with  scores  of  mouldering  heads,  impeded 
the  navigation  of  the  river. 

*  Macpherson'9  History  of  Commerce  ;  Chalmers's  Estimate ;  Cliamlierlayiie's 
State  of  England,  1684.  The  tonnage  of  the  steamers  belonging  to  the  port  of 
London  was,  at  the  end  of  1847,  about  CO,COJ  tons.  The  customs  of  the  port,  from 
1842  to  18-15.  very  nearly  averaged  11,000,000/.  (1848.)  In  1854  the  tonnage  of  the 
Bteamers  of  the  port  of  London  amounted  to  138,000  toua,  without  reckoning 
vessels  of  less  than  fifty  tons.  (1857.) 

t  Lyson's  Environs  of  London.  The  baptisms  at  Chelsea,  between  1680  «a4 
1690,  were  only  42  a  year- 

I  Cowley,  Discourse  of  Solitude. 


320  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

Of  the  metropolis,  the  City,  properly  so  called,  was  the 
most  important  division.  At  the  time  of  the  Restoration  it 
had  been  built,  for  the  most  part,  of  wood  and  plaster:  tVie 
few  bricks  that  were  used  were  ill  baked  ;  the  booths  where 
goods  were  exposed  to  sale  projected  far  into  the  streets,  and 
were  overhung  by  the  upper  stories.  A  few  specimens  of  this 
architecture  may  still  be  seen  in  those  districts  which  were  not 
reached  by  the  great  fire.  That  fire  had,  in  a  few  days,  covered 
a  space  of  little  less  than  a  square  mile  with  the  ruins  of  eighty- 
nine  churches  and  of  tliirteen  thousand  houses.  But  the  City 
had  risen  again  with  a  celerity  which  had  excited  the  admiration 
of  neighbouring  countries.  Unfortunately,  the  old  lines  of  the 
streets  had  been  to  a  great  extent  preserved ;  and  those  lines, 
originally  traced  in  an  age  when  even  princesses  performed 
their  journeys  on  horseback,  were  often  too  narrow  to  allow, 
wheeled  carriages  to  pass  each  other  with  ease,  and  were  there- 
fore ill  adapted  for  the  residence  of  wealthy  persons  in  an  age 
when  a  coach  and  six  was  a  fashionable  luxury.  The  style  of 
building  was,  however,  far  superior  to  that  of  the  City  which 
had  perished.  The  ordinaiy  material  was  brick,  of  much  better 
quality  than  had  formerly  been  used.  On  the  sites  of  the 
ancient  parish  churches  had  arisen  a  multitude  of  new  domes, 
towers,  and  spires  which  bore  the  mark  of  the  fertile  genius  of 
Wren.  In  eveiy  place  save  one  the  traces  of  the  great  devas- 
tation had  been  completely  effaced.  But  the  crowds  of  work- 
men, the  scaffolds,  and  the  masses  of  hewn  stone  were  still  to 
be  seen  where  the  noblest  of  Protestant  temples  was  slowly 
rising  on  the  ruins  of  the  Old  Cathedral  of  Saint  Paul.* 

The  whole  character  of  the  City  has,  since  that  time,  under- 
gone a  complete  change.  At  jiresent  the  bankers,  the  merchants, 
and  the  chief  shopkeepers  repair  thither  on  six  mornings  of  every 
week  for  the  transaction  of  business  ;  but  they  reside  in  other 

*  The  fullest  and  most  trustworthy  information  about  the  state  of  th&  build- 
ings of  London  at  this  time  is  to  by  derived  from  the  maps  and  drawings  in  tho 
British  Museum  and  in  the  Pepysian  Library.  The  badness  of  tlie  bricIcB  in  the 
old  buildings  of  London  is  particularly  mentioned  in  the  Travels  of  the  Grand 
Duke  Cosmo.  There  is  an  account  of  the  works  at  Saint  Paul's  in  'Ward's  Lon- 
don Spy.  I  am  almost  ashamed  to  quote  such  nauseous  balderdash  ;  but  I  hare 
been  forced  to  descend  even  lower,  if  possible,  in  search  of  materials. 


STATE    OP    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  321 

quarters  of  the  metropolis,  or  at  suburban  country  seats  sur- 
rounded by  shrubberies  and  flower  gardens.  This  revolution  in 
private  habits  has  produced  a  political  revolution  of  no  small 
importance.  The  City  is  no  longer  regarded  by  the  wealthiest 
traders  with  that  attachment  which  every  man  naturally  feels  for 
his  home.  It  is  no  longer  associated  in  their  minds  with  domes- 
tic affections  and  endearments.  The  fireside,  the  nursery,  the 
social  table,  the  -quiet  bed  are  not  there.  Lombard  Street  and 
Threadneedle  Street  are  merely  places  where  men  toil  and  ac- 
cumulate. They  go  elsewhere  to  enjoy  and  ^to  expend.  On  a 
Sunday,  or  in  an  evening  after  the  hours  of  business,  some 
courts  and  alleys,  which  a  few  hour.?  before  had  been  alive  with 
hurrying  feet  and  anxious  faces,  areas  silent  as  the  glades  of  a 
forest.  The  chiefs  of  the  mercantile  interest  are  no  lonser  cit- 
izens.  They  avoid,  they  almost  contemn,  municipal  honours  and 
duties.  Those  honours  and  duties  are  abandoned  to  men  who, 
though  useful  and  highly  respectable,  seldom  belong  to  the 
princely  commercial  houses  of  which  the  names  are  renowned 
throughout  the  world. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  the  City  was  the  merchant's  res- 
idence. Those  mansions  of  the  great  old  burghers  which  still 
exist  have  been  turned  into  counting  houses  and  warehouses  : 
but  it  is  evident  that  they  were  originally  not  inferior  in  magnifi- 
cence to  the  dwellings  which  were  then  inhabited  by  the  nobil- 
ity. They  sometimes  stand  in  retired  and  gloomy  courts,  and 
are  accessible  only  by  inconvenient  passages  ;  but  their  dimen- 
sions are  ample,  and  their  aspect  stately.  The  entrances  are 
decorated  with  richly  carved  pillars  and  canopies.  The  staircases 
and  landing  places  are  not  wanting  in  grandeur.  The  floors 
are  sometimes  of  wood  tessellated  after  the  fashion  of  France. 
The  palace  of  Sir  Robert  Clayton,  in  the  Old  Jewry,  contained 
a  superb  banqueting  room  wainscoted  with  cedar,  and  adorned 
with  battles  of  gods  and  giants  in  fresco.*  Sir  Dudley  North 
expended  four  thousand  pounds,  a  sum  which  would  then  have 
been  important  to  a  Duke,  on  the  rich  furniture  of  his  re- 
ception rooms  in  Basinghall   Street,  f     In  such  abodes,  under 

"  Evelyn's  l)iary,  Sept.  20. 1672.  t  Roger  North's  Lifft  of  Sir  Dudley  North. 

.21 


522  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  last  Stuarts,  the  hQ3,ds  of  the  great  firms  lived  splendidly  and 
hospitably.  To  their  dwelling  place  they  were  bound  by  the 
strongest  ties  of  interest  and  affection.  There  they  had  passed 
their  youth,  had  made  their  friendships,  had  courted  their  wives, 
had  seen  their  children  grow  up,  had  laid  the  remains  of  their 
parents  in  the  earth,  and  expected  that  their  own  remains  would 
be  laid.  That  intense  patriotism  which  is  peculiar  to  the  mem- 
bers of  societies  congregated  within  a  narrow  space  was,  in  such 
circumstances,  strongly  developed.  London  was,  to  the  Londoner, 
what  Athens  was  to  the  Athenian  of  the  age  of  Pericles,  what 
Florence  was  to  the  Florentine  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The 
citizen  was  proud  of  the  grandeur  of  his  city,  punctilious  about 
her  claims  to  respect,  ambitious  of  her  offices,  and  zealous  for 
her  franchises. 

At  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second  the  pride  of 
the  Londoners  was  smarting  from  a  cruel  mortification.  The 
old  charter  had  been  taken  away  ;  and  the  magistracy  had  been 
remodelled.  All.  the  civic  functionaries  were  Tories  :  and  the 
Whigs,  though  in  numbers  and  in  wealth,  superior  to  their  oppo- 
nents, found  themselves  excluded  from  every  local  dignity. 
Nevertheless,  the  external  splendour  of  the  municipal  govern- 
ment was  not  diminished,  nay,  was  rather  increased  by  this 
change.  For,  under  the  administration  of  some  Puritans  who 
had  lately  borne  rule,  the  ancient  fame  of  the  City  for  good 
cheer  had  declined  :  but  under  the  new  magistrates,  who  belong- 
ed to  a  more  festive  party,  and  at  whose  boards  guests  of  rank 
and  fashion  from  beyond  Temple  Bar  were  often  seen,  the 
Guildhall  and  the  halls  of  the  great  companies  were  enlivened 
by  many  sumptuous  banquets.  During  these  repasts,  odes  com- 
posed by  the  poet  laureate  of  the  corporation,  in  praise  of  the 
King,  the  Duke,  and  the  Mayor,  were  sung  to  music.  The 
drinking  was  deep  and  the  shouting  loud.  An  observant  Tory, 
who  had  often  shared  in  these  revels,  has  remarked  that  the  prac 
tice  of  huzzaing  after  drinking  healths  dates  from  this  joyous 
period.* 

*  North's  Examen.    This  amusing  writer  has  preserved  a  specimen  of  the  sub- 
lime raptures  in  which  the  Pir.dar  of  the  City  indulged  :— 
"  The  worshipful  Sir  John  Moor ! 
After  age  that  name  adore  1 " 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  323 

The  magnificence  displayed  by  the  first  civic  magistrate  was 
almost  regal.     The  gilded  coach,  indeed,  which  is  now  annually 
admired  by  the  crowd,  was  not  yet  a  part  of  lys  state.     On  great 
occasions  he  appeared  on  horseback,  attended  by  a  long  cavalcade 
inferior  in  magnificence  only  to  that  which,  before  a  coronation, 
escorted  the  sovei-eign  from  the  Towe'r  to   Westminster.     The 
Lord  Mayor  was  never  seen  in  public  without  his  rich  robe,  his 
hood  of  black  velvet,  his  gold  chain,  his  jewel,  and  a  great 
attendance  of  harbingers  and  guards.*     Nor  did  the  world  find 
anything  ludicrous  in   the  pomp  which  constantly  surrounded 
him.     For  it  was  not  more  than  became  the   place  which,  as 
wielding  the   strength  and  representing  the  dignity  of  the  City 
of  London,  he  was  entitled  to  occuj^y  in  the  State.     That  City, 
being  then  not  only  without  equal  in  the  country,  but  without 
second,  had,  during  five   and  forty   years,  exercised  almost   as 
great  an  influence  on  the  politics  of  England  as   Paris  has,  in 
our  own  time,  exercised  on  the  politics  of   France.     In  Intelli- 
gence   London  was  greatly  in   advance  of   every  other  part  of 
the  kingdom.     A  government,  supported  and  trusted  by  London, 
could  in  a  day  obtain  such  pecuniary  means   as   it  would  have 
taken  months  to  collect  from  the  rest  of   the  island.     Nor  were 
the  military  resources  of  the  capital  to  be  despised.    The  power 
which   the   Lord  Lieutenants   exercised  in   other   parts  of  the 
kingdom  was  in  London  entrusted  to  a  Commission  of  emment 
citizens.      Under   the   order  of   this   Commission  were   twelve 
regiments  of  foot   and  two   regiments  of  horse.     An  army  of 
drapers'    apprentices    and   journeymen    tailors,    with    common 
councilmen  for   captains  and  aldermen   for  colonels,  might  not 
indeed  have  been  able  to  stand  its  ground  against  regular  troops  ; 
but  there  were   then  very  few   regular  troops   in  the  kingdom. 
A  town,  therefore,  which  could  send  forth,  at  an  hour's  notice, 
thousands  of  men,  abounding  in  natural  courage,  provided  with 
tolerable  weapons,  and  not  altogether  untinctured  with  martial 
discipline,  could  not  but  be  a  valuable  ally   and  a  formidable 
enemy.     It  was  not  forgotten  that  Hampden  and  Pynj  had  been 

*  Cbamberlayne's  state  of  England,  1G84;  Anglise  Metropolis,  1690  ;  Seymour'f 
Loncjon,  X734, 


324  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

protected  from  lawless  tyranny  by  the  London  trainbands ;  that, 
in  the  great  crisis  of  the  civil  war,  the  London  trainbands  had 
inarched  to  raise  the  siege  of  Gloucester  ;  or  that,  in  the  move- 
ment against  the  military  tyrants  which  followed  the  downfall 
of  Richard  Cromwell,  the  London  trainbands  had  borne  a  signal 
part.  In  truth,  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that,  but  for  the 
hostility  of  the  City,  Charles  the  First  would  never  have  been 
vanquished,  and  that,  without  the  help  of  the  City,  Charles  the 
Second  could  scarcely  have  been  restored. 

These  considerations  may  serve  to  explain  why,  in  spite  of 
that  attraction  which  had,  during  a  long  course  of  years, 
gradually  drawn  the  aristocracy  westward,  a  few  men  of  liigh 
rank  had  continued,  till  a  very  recent  period,  to  dwell  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  Exchange  and  of  the  Guildhall.  Shaftesbury 
and  Buckingham,  while  engaged  in  bitter  and  unscrupulous  op- 
position to  the  government,  had  thought  that  tliey  could  no- 
wnere  carry  on  their  intrigues  so  conveniently  or  so  securely  as 
under  the  protection  of  the  City  magistrates  and  the  City  militia. 
Shaftesbury  had  therefore  lived  in  Aldersgate  Street,  at  a  house 
which  may  still  be  easily  known  by  pilasters  and  wreaths,  the 
graceful  work  of  Inigo.  Buckingham  had  ordered  his  mansion 
near  Charing  Cross,  once  the  abode  of  the  Archbishops  of  York, 
to  be  pulled  down  ;  and,  while  streets  and  alleys  which  are  still 
named  after  him  were  rising  on  that  site,  chose  to  reside  in 
Dowgate.* 

These,  however,  were  rare  exceptions.  Almost  all  the  noble 
families  of  England  had  long  migrated  beyond  the  walls.  The 
district  where  most  of  their  town  houses  stood  lies  between  the 
city  and  the  regions  which  are  now  considered  as  fashionable. 
A  few  great  men  still  retained  their  hereditary  hotels  in  the 
Strand,  The  stately  dwellings  on  the  south  and  west  of  Lin- 
coln's Inn  Fields,  the  Piazza  of  Coveut  Garden,  Southampton 
Square,  which  is  now  called  Bloomsbury  Square,  and  King's 
Square  in  Soho  Fields,  which  is  now  called  Soho  Square,  were 
among  the  favourite  spots.     Foreign  princes   were  carried  to 

*  North's  Examen,  116 ;    "Wood,  Ath.  Ox,  Shaftesbury  •    The  Duke  of  B.'s 
Litany. 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  325 

see  Bloomsbury  Square,  as  one  of  the  wonders  of  England.* 
Soho  Square,  which  had  just  been  built,  was  to  our  ancestors  a 
subject  of  pride  with  which  their  posterity  will  hardly  sympa- 
thise. Monmouth  Square  had  been  the  name  whil^  the  fortunes 
of  the  Duke  of  Monmouth  flourished  ;  and  on  the  southern  side 
towered  his  mansion.  The  front,  though  ungraceful,  was  lofty 
and  richly  adorned.  The  walls  of  the  principal  apartments 
were  finely  sculptured  with  fruit,  foliage,  and  armorial  bearings, 
and  were  hung  with  embroidered  satin. f  Every  trace  of  this 
magnificence  has  long  disappeared  ;  and  no  aristocratical  man- 
sion is  to  be  found  in  that  once  aristocratical  quarter.  A  little 
way  north  from  Holborn,  and  on  the  verge  of  the  pastures  and 
corn-fields,  rose  two  celebrated  palaces,  each  with  an  ample 
'garden.  One  of  them,  then  called  Southampton  House,  and 
subsequently  Bedford  House,  was  removed  about  fifty  years 
ago  to  make  room  for  a  new  city,  which  now  covers  with  its 
squares,  streets,  and  churches,  a  vast  area,  renowned  in  the 
seventeenth  century  for  peaches  and  snipes.  The  other,  IMon- 
tague  House,  celebrated  for  its  frescoes  and  furniture,  was,  a 
few  months  after  the  death  of  Charles  the  Second,  burned  to  the 
ground,  and  was  speedily  succeeded  by  a  more  magnificent 
Montague  House,  which,  having  been  long  the  repository  of 
such  various  and  precious  treasures  of  art,  science,  and  learning 
as  were  scarcely  ever  before  assembled  under  a  single  roof,  has 
now  given  place  to  an  edifice  more  magnificent  still. t 

Nearer  to  the  Court,  on  a  space  called  St.  James's  Fields, 
had  just  been  built  St.  James's  Square  and  Jermyn  Street. 
St.  James's  Church  had  recently  been  opened  for  the  accommo- 
dation of  the  inhabitants  of  this  new  quarter.  §  Golden  Square, 
which  was  in  the  next  generation  inhabited  bv  lords  and  min- 
isters  of  state,  had  not  yet  been  begun.  Indeed  the  only 
dwellings  to  be  seen  on  the  north  of  Piccadilly  were  threo  or 
four  isolated  and  almost  rural   mansions,  of   which  the  most 

*  Travels  of  the  Grand  Duke  Cosmo. 

t  Chamberlayiie's  State  of  England,  1684 ;   Pennant's  London ;  Smith's  Life 
of  Nollekens. 

t  Evelyn's  Diary,  Oct.  10,  1683,  Jan.  19,  1685-6. 

J  Stat.  1  Jac.  II.  c.  22  ;  Evelyn's  Diary,  Dec.  7,  1684. 


526  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

celebrated  was  the  costly  pile  erected  by  Clarendon,  and  nick, 
named  Dunkirk  House.  It  had  been  purchased  after  its  found- 
er's downfall  by  the  Duke  of  Albemarle.  The  Clarendon 
Hotel  and  Albemarle  Street  still  preserve  the  memory  of  the 
site. 

He  who  then  rambled  to  what  is  now  the  gayest  and  most 
crowded  part  of  Regent  Street  found  himself  in  a  solitude,  and 
was  sometimes  so  fortunate  as  to  have  a  shot  at  a  woodcock.* 
On  the  north  the  Oxford  road  ran  between  hedges.  Three  or 
four  hundred  yards  to  the  south  were  the  garden  walls  of  a  few 
great  houses  which  were  considered  as  quite  out  of  town.  On 
the  west  was  a  meadow  renowned  for  a  sprii)g  from  which,  long 
afterwards.  Conduit  Street  was  named.  On  the  east  was  a 
field  not  to  be  passed  without  a  shudder  by  any  Londoner  of 
that  age.  There,  as  in  a  place  far  from  the  haunts  of  men,  had 
been  dug,  twenty  years  before,  when  the  great  plague  was 
raging,  a  pit  into  which  the  dead  carts  had  nightly  shot  corpses 
by  scores.  It  was  popularly  believed  that  the  earth  was  deeply 
tainted  with  infection,  and  could  not  be  disturbed  without  im- 
minent risk  to  human  life.  No  foundations  were  laid  there  till 
two  generations  had  passed  without  any  return  of  the  pesti- 
lence, and  till  the  ghastly  spot  had  long  been  surrounded  by 
buildings. t 

We  should  greatly  err  if  we  were  to  suppose  that  any  of 
the  streets  and  squares  then  bore  the  same  aspect  as  at  present. 
The  great  majority  of  the  houses,  indeed,  have,  since  that  time, 
been  wholly,  or  in  great  part,  rebuilt.  If  the  most  fashionable 
parts  of  the  capital  could  be  placed  before  us  such  as  they  then 
were,  we  should  be  disgusted  by  their  squalid  appearance,  and 
poisoned  by  their  noisome  atmosphere. 

In  Covent  Garden  a  filthy  and  noisy  market  was  held  close 
to  the  dwellings  of  the  great.     Fruit  women  screamed,  carters 


♦  Old  General  Oglethorpe,  who  died  in  1785,  used  to  boast  that  he  had  shot 
birds  here  in  Anne's  reign.  See  Pennant's  London,  and  the  Gentleman's  Maga- 
zine for  July,  1785. 

t  The  pest  field  will  be  seen  in  maps  of  London  a«  late  as  the  end  of  George 
the  First's  reign. 


STATE    OP    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  327 

fought,  cabbage  stalks  aud  rotten  apples  accumulated  in  heaps 
at  the  thresholds  of  the  Countess  of -Berkshire  and  of  the 
Bishop  of  Durham.* 

The  centre  of  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  was  an  open  space  where 
the  rabble  congregated  every  evening,  within  a  few  yards  of 
Cardigan  House  aud  Winchester  House,  to  hear  mountebanks 
harangue,  to  see  bears  dance,  and  to  set  dogs  at  oxen.  Rub- 
bish was  shot  in  every  part  of  the  area.  Horses  were  exer- 
cised there.  The  beggars  were  as  noisy  and  importunate  as  in 
the  worst  governed  cities  of  the  Continent.  A  Lincoln's  Inn 
mumper  was  a  proverb.  The  whole  fraternity  knew  the  arms 
and  liveries  of  every  charitably  disposed  grandee  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood, and  as  soon  as  his  lordship's  coach  and  six  appeared, 
came  hopping  and  crawling  in  crowds  to  persecute  him.  These 
disorders  lasted,  in  spite  of  many  accidents,  and  of  some  legal 
proceedings,  till,  in  the  reign  of  George  the  Second,  Sir  Joseph 
Jekyll,  Master  of  the  Rolls,  was  knocked  down  and  nearly  killed 
in  the  middle  of  the  Square.  Then  at  length  palisades  were 
set  up,  and  a  pleasant  garden  laid  out.f 

Saint  James's  Square  was  a  receptacle  for  all  the  oifal  and 
cinders,  for  all  the  dead  cats  and  dead  dogs  of  Westminster.  At 
one  time'a  cudgel  player  kept  the  ring  there.  At  another  time  an 
impudent  squatter  settled  himself  there,  and  built  a  shed  for  rub- 
bish under  the  windows  of  the  gilded  saloons  in  which  the  first 
magnates  of  the  realm,  Norfolk,  Ormond,  Kent,  and  Pembroke, 
gave  banquets  and  balls.  It  was  not  till  these  nuisances  bad 
lasted  through  a  whole  generation,  and  till  much  had  been  writ- 


»  See  a  very  curious  plan  of  Covent  Garden  made  about  1C90,  and  engraved 
for  Smiths  History  of  Westminster.  See  also  Hogarth's  Morning,  painted  while 
some  of  the  houses  in  the  Piazza  were  still  occupied  by  people  of  fashion. 

t  London  Spy  ;  Tom  Brown's  coniical  View  of  London  and  Westminster  ; 
Turner's  Propositions  for  the  employing  of  the  Poor,  1678 ;  Daily  Coiirant  j»nd 
Daily  Journal  of  June  7,  1733  ;  Case  of  Michael  v.  Allestree,  in  1676,  2  Levinz,  p. 
172.  Michael  had  been  run  over  by  two  horses  which  Allestree  was  breaking  in 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.  The  declaration  set  forth  that  the  defendant "  porta  deux 
chivals  ungovernable  en  un  coach,  et  improvise,  incaute,  et  absque  debita  con- 
sideratione  ineptitudinis  loci  la  eux  drive  pur  eux  faire  tractable  et  apt  pur 
un  coach,  quels  chivals,  pur  ceo  que,  per  leur  ferocite,ne  poientestre  rule,  curro 
Bur  le  plaintifC  et  le  noie." 


S28  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

ten  about  them,  that  the  inhabitants  applied  to  Parliament  foJ 
permission  to  put  up  rails,  and  to  plant  trees.* 

When  such  was  the  state  of  the  region  inhabited  by  the 
most  luxurious  portion  of  society,  we  may  easily  believe  that  the 
great  body  of  the  population  suffered  what  would  now  be  con- 
sidered as  insupportable  grievances.  The  pavement  was  detest- 
able :  all  foreigners  cried  shame  upon  it.  The  drainage  was 
so  bad  that  in  rainy  weather  the  gutters  soon  became  torrents. 
Several  facetious  poets  have  commemorated  the  fury  with  which 
these  black  rivulets  roared  down  Snow  Hill  and  Ludgate  Hill, 
bearing  to  Fleet  Ditch  a  vast  tribute  of  animal  and  vegetable 
filth  from  the  stalls  of  butchers  and  greengrocers.  This  flood 
was  profusely  thrown  to  right  and  left  by  coaches  and  carts. 
To  keep  as  far  from  the  carriage  road  as  possible  was  therefore 
the  wish  of  every  pedestrian.  The  mild  and  timid  gave  the 
wall.  The  bold  and  athletic  took  it.  If  two  roisterers  met, 
tlisy  cocked  their  hats  in  each  other's  faces,  aud  pushed  each 
other  about  till  the  weaker  was  shoved  towards  the  kennel.  If 
he  was  a  mere  bully  he  sneaked  off,  muttering  that  he  should 
find  a  time.  If  he  was  pugn-vcious,  the  encounter  probably 
ended  in  a  duel  behind  Montague  House,  t 

The  houses  were  not  numbered.  There  would  indeed  have 
been  little  advantage  in  numbering  them  ;  for  of  the  coachmen, 
chairmen,  porters,  and  errand  boys  of  London,  a  very  small 
proportion  could  read.  It  was  necessary  to  use  marks  which 
the  most  ignorant  could  understand.  The  shops  were  therefore 
distinguished  by  painted  or  sculptured  signs,  which  gave  a  gay 
and  grotesque  aspect  to  the  streets.  The  walk  from  Charing 
Cross  to  Whitechapel  lay  through  an  endless  succession  of  Sar- 
acens' Heads,  Royal  Oaks,  Blue  Bears,  and  Golden  Lambs, 
which  disappeared  when  they  were  no  longer  required  for  the 
direction  of  the  common  people. 

*  Stat.  12  Geo.  I.  c.  25  ;  Commons'  Journals,  Feb.  25,  March  2, 1725-6  ;  London 
Gardener,  1712  ;  Evening  Post,  March,  23, 1731.  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  this 
number  of  the  Evening  Post ;  I  therefore  quote  it  on  the  faith  of  Mr.  Malcolm, 
who  mentions  it  in  his  History  of  London. 

t  Lettres  sur  les  Anglois,  written  early  iu  the  reign  of  "William  the  Third  ; 
Swift's  City  Shower  ;  Gay's  Trivia.  Johnson  used  to  relate  a  curious  conversation 
which  he  had  with  his  mother  about  giving  and  taking  the  wall. 


STATE  OF  ENGLAND  IN  1685.  329 

"When  the  evening  closed  in,  the  difficulty  and  dangoi*  of 
walking  about  Loudon  became  serious  indeed.  The  garret  win- 
dows were  opened,  and  pails  were  emptied,  with  little  regard  to 
those  who  were  passing  below.  Falls,  bruises  and  broken  bones 
were  of  constant  occurrence.  For,  till  the  last  year  of  the  reign 
of  Charles  the  Second,  most  of  the  streets  were  left  in  profound 
darkness.  Thieves  and  robbers  plied  their  trade  with  impunity  : 
yet  they  were  hardly  so  terrible  to  peaceable  citizens  as  another 
class  of  ruffians.  It  was  a  favourite  amusement  of  dissolute 
young  gentlemen  to  swagger  by  night  about  the  town,  breaking 
windows,  upsetting  sedans,  beating  quiet  men,  and  offering  r«de 
caresses  to  pretty  women.  Several  dynasties  of  these  tyrants 
had,  since  the  Restoration,  domineered  over  the  streets.  The 
Muns  and  Tityre  Tus  had  given  place  to  the  Hectors,  and  the 
Hectors  had  been  recently  succeeded  by  the  Scourers.  At  a 
later  period  arose  the  Nicker,  the  Hawcubite,  and  the  yet  more 
dreaded  name  of  Mohawk.*  The  machinery  for  keeping  the 
peace  was  utterly  contemptible.  There  was  an  Act  of  Common 
Council  which  provided  that  more  than  a  thousand  watchmen 
should  be  constantly  on  the  alert  in  the  city,  from  sunset  to_ 
sunrise,  and  that  every  inhabitant  should  take  his  turn  of  duty. 
But  this  Act  was  negligently  executed.  Few  of  those  who  were 
summoned  left  their  homes  ;  and  those  few  generally  found  it 
more  agreeable  to  tipple  in  alehouses  than  to  pace  the  streets. f 

It  ought  to  be  noticed  that,  in  the  last  year  of  the  reign  of 
Charles  the  Second,  began  a  great  change  in  the  police  of  Lon- 
don, a  change  which  has  perhaps  added  as  much  to  the  happiness 
of  the  body  of  the  people  as  revolutions  of  much  greater  fame. 

*  Oldham's  Imitation  of  tlio  3d  Satire  of  Juvenal,  1G82  ;  Shadwell's  Scourers, 
1690.  Many  other  authorities  will  readily  occur  to  all  who  are  acquainted  with 
the  popular  literatvire  of  that  and  the  succeeding  generation  It  may  be  suspected 
that  Som3  of  the  Tityre  Tus,  like  good  Cavaliers,  broke  Milton's  windows  shortly 
after  the  Restoration  I  am  confident  that  he  was  thinking  of  those  pests  of  Lon- 
don when  he  dictated  the  noble  lines  :— 

"And  in  luxurious  cities,  when  the  noise 
Of  riot  ascends  above  their  loftiest  towers. 
And  injury  and  outrage,  and  when  night 
Darkens  the  streets,  then  wander  forth  the  sons 
Of  Kclial,  flown  with  insolence  and  wine." 

t  Seymour's  London. 


830  HISTOilT    OF    ENGLAND. 

An  ingenious  projector,  named  Edward  Heming,  obtained  letters 
patent  conveying  to  him,  for  a  term  of  years,  the  exclusive  right 
of  lighting  up  London.  He  undertook,  for  a  moderate  consid- 
eration, to  place  a  light  before  every  tenth  door,  on  moonlcsi 
nights,  from  Michaelmas  to  Lady  Day,  and  from  six  to  twelve 
of  the  clock.  Those  who  now  see  the  capital  all  the  year 
round,  from  dusk  to  dawn,  blazing  with  a  splendour  beside  which 
the  illuminations  for  La  Hogue  and  Blenheim  would  have  look- 
ed pale,  may  perhaps  smile  to  think  of  Heming's  lanterns,  which 
glimmered  feebly  before  one  house  in  ten  during  a  small  part  of 
one  night  in  three.  But  such  was  not  the  feeling  of  his  contem- 
poraries. His  scheme  was  enthusiastically  applauded,  and 
furiously  attacked.  The  friends  of  improvement  extolled  him 
as  the  greatest  of  all  the  benefactors  of  his  city.  What,  they 
asked,  were  the  boasted  inventions  of  Archimedes,  when  com- 
pared with  the  achievement  of  the  man  who  had  turned  the 
nocturnal  shades  into  noon-day  ?  In  spite  of  these  eloquent  eulo- 
gies the  cause  of  darkness  was  not  left  undefended.  There  were 
fools  in  that  age  who  opposed  the  introduction  of  what  w:is  called 
the  new  light  as  strenuously  as  fools  in  our  age  have  opposed 
the  introduction  of  vaccination  and  railroads,  as  strenuously  as 
the  fools  of  an  age  anterior  to  the  dawn  of  history  doubtless 
opposed  the  introduction  of  the  plough  and  of  alphabetical 
writing.  Many  years  after  the  date  of  Heming's  patent  there 
were  extensive  districts  in  which  no  lamp  was  seen.* 

We  may  easily  imagine  what,  in  such  times,  must  have  been 
the  state  of  the  quarters  of  London  which  were  peopled  by  the 
outcasts  of  society.  Among  those  quarters  one  had  attained  a 
Bcandalous  preeminence.  On  the  confines  of  the  City  and  the 
Temple  had  been  founded,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  a  House  of 
Carmelite  Friars,  distinguished  by  their  white  hoods.  The 
precinct  of  this  house  hadj^  before  the  Reformation,  been 
sanctuary  for  criminals,  and  still  retained  the  privilege  of  pro- 
tecting debtors  from  arrest.  Insolvents  consequently  were  to 
be  found  in  every  dwelling,  from  cellar  to  garret.     Of  these 

*  Angliae  Metropolis,  1690,  Sect.  17,  entitled,  "  Of  the  new  lights  "  ;  Seymour's 
lx>ndon. 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  331 

A  large  proportion  were  knaves  and  libertines,  and  were  follow- 
ed to  their  asylum  by  women  more  abandoned  than  themselves. 
The  civil  power  was  unable  to  keep  order  in  a  district  swarming 
with  such  inhabitants  ;  and  thus  Whitefriars  became  the  favour- 
ite resort  of  all  who  wished  to  be  emancipated  from  the  restraints 
of  the  law.  Though  the  immunities  legally  belonging  to  the 
place  extended  only  to  cases  of  debt,  cheats,  false  witnesses,  for- 
gers, and  highwaymen  found  refuge  there.  For  amidst  a  rabble 
so  desperate  no  peace  officer's  life  was  in  safety.  At  the  cry  of 
"  Rescue,"  bullies  with  swords  and  cud^-els,  and  termao'ant  hairs 
with  spits  and  broomsticks,  poured  forth  by  hundreds  ;  and  the 
intruder  was  fortunate  if  he  escaped  back  into  Fleet  Street, 
hustled,  stripped,  and  pumped  upon.  Even  the  warrant  of  the 
Chief  Justice  of  England  could  not  be  executed  without  the 
help  of  a  company  of  musketeers.  Such  relics  of  the  barbarism 
of  the  darkest  ages  were  to  be  found  within  a  short  walk  of  the 
chambers  where  Somers  was  studying  history  and  law,  of  the 
chapel  where  Tillotson  was  preaching,  of  the  coffee  house  where 
Dryden  was  passing  judgment  on  poems  and  plays,  and  of  the 
hall  whei'e  the  Royal  Society  was  examining  the  astronomical 
system  of  Isaac  Newton.* 

Each  of  the  two  cities  which  made  up  the  capital  of  England 
had  its  own  centre  of  attraction.  In  the  metropolis  of  com- 
merce the  point  of  convergence  was  the  Exchange  ;  in  the  me- 
tropolis of  fashion  the  Palace.  But  the  Palace  did  not  retain 
its  influence  so  long  as  the  Exchange.  The  Revolution  com- 
pletely altered  the  relations  between  the  Court  and  the  higher 
classes  of  society.  It  was  by  degrees  discovered  that  the  King, 
in  his  individual  capacity,  had  very  little  to  give ;  that  coronets 
and  garters,  bishoprics  and  embassies,  lordships  of  the  Treasury 
and  tellerships  of  the  Exchequer,  nay,  even  charges  in  the  royal 
stud  and  bedchamber,  were  really  bestowed,  not  by  him,  but  by 
his  advisers.  Every  ambitious  and  covetous  man  perceived 
that  he  would  consult  his  own  interest  far  better  by  acquiring 
the  dominion  of  a  Cornish  borough,  and  by  rendering  good  ser* 

•  Stowe's  Survey  of  London  ;  Shatlwell's  Squire  of  Alsatia ;  Ward's  London 
6py  :  Stat.  8  &  9  Qui.  nl.  cap.  27. 


S32  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

vice  to  the  ministry  during  a  critical  session,  than  by  becoming 
the  companion,  or  even  the  minion,  of  his  prince.  It  was  there- 
fore in  the  antechambers,  not  of  George  the  First  and  of  George 
the  Second,  but  of  Walpole  and  of  Pelham,  that  the  daily 
crowd  of  courtiers  was  to  be  found.  It  is  also  to  be  remarked 
that  the  same  Revolution,  which  made  it  impossible  tliat  our 
Kings  should  use  the  patronage  of  the  state  merely  for  the  pur- 
pose of  gratifying  their  personal  predilections,  gave  us  several 
Kings  unfitted  by  their  education  and  habits  to  be  gi'acious  and 
affable  hosts.  They  had  been  born  and  bred  on  the  Continent. 
They  never  felt  themselves  at  home  in  our  island.  If  they 
spoke  our  language,  they  spoke  it  inelegantly  and  with 
effort.  Our  national  character  they  never  fully  understood. 
Our  national  manners  they  hardly  attempted  to  acquire.  The 
most  important  part  of  their  duty  they  performed  better  than, 
any  ruler  who  preceded  them  :  for  they  governed  strictly  ac- 
cording to  law  :  but  they  could  not  be  the  first  gentlemen  of  the 
realm,  the  heads  of  polite  society.  If  ever  they  unbent,  it  was 
in  a  very  small  circle  where  hardly  an  English  face  was  to  ba 
seen ;  and  they  were  never  so  happy  as  when  they  could  escape 
for  a  summer  to  their  native  land.  They  had  indeed  their  days 
of  reception  for  our  nobility  and  gentry ;  but  the  reception  was 
a  mere  matter  of  form,  and  became  at  last  as  solemn  a  ceremony 
as  a  funeral. 

Not  such  was  the  court  of  Charles  the  Second.  Whitehall, 
when  he  dwelt  there,  was  the  focus  of  political  intrigue  and 
of  fashionable  gaiety.  Half  the  jobbing  and  half  the  flirting 
of  the  metropolis  went  on  under  his  roof.  Whoever  could 
make  himself  agreeable  to  the  prince,  or  could  secure  the  good 
ofiices  of  the  mistress,  might  hope  to  rise  in  the  world  without 
rendering  any  service  to  the  government,  without  being  even 
known  by  sight  to  any  minister  of  state.  This  courtier  got  a 
frigate,  and  that  a  company  ;  a  third,  the  pardon  of  a  rich 
offender  ;  a  fourth,  a  lease  of  crown  land  on  easy  terms.  If 
the  King  notified  his  pleasure  that  a  briefless  lawyer  should  be 
made  a  judge,  or  that  a  libertine  baronet  should  be  made  a 
pa«r,  the  gravest  counsellors,  after  a  little   mui'muring,  sub- 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1G85.  333 

mitted.*  Interest,  therefore,  drew  a  constant  press  of  suitors 
to  the  gates  of  the  palace ;  and  those  gates  always  stood  wide. 
The  King  kept  open  house  every  day,  and  all  day  long,  for  the 
good  society  of  London,  the  extreme  Whigs  only  excepted. 
Hardly  any  gentleman  had  any  difficulty  in  making  his  way  to 
the  royal  presence.  The  levee  was  exactly  what  the  word 
imports.  Some  men  of  quality  came  every  morning  to  stand 
round  their  master,  to  chat  with  him  while  his  wig  was  combed 
and  his  cravat  tied,  and  to  accompany  him  iu  his  early  walk 
through  the  Park.  All  persons  who  had  been  properly  intro- 
duced might,  without  any  special  invitation,  go  to  see  him  dine, 
sup,  dance,  and  play  at  hazai-d,  and  might  have  the  pleasure  of 
hearing  him  tell  stories,  which  indeed  he  told  remarkably  well., 
about  his  flight  from  Worcester,  and  about  the  misery  which  he 
had  endured  when  he  was  a  state  prisoner  in  the  hands  of  the 
canting  meddling  preachers  of  Scotland.  Bystanders  whom 
His  Majesty  recognis  d  often  came  in  for  a  courteous  word. 
This  proved  a  far  more  successful  kingcraft  than  any  that  his 
father  or  grandfather  had  practised.  It  was  not  easy  for  the 
most  austere  republican  of  the  school  of  Marvel  to  resist  the 
fascination  of  so  much  good  humour  and  affability;  and  many 
a  veteran  Cavalier,  iu  whose  heart  the  remembrance  of  unre- 
quited sacrifices  and  services  had  been  festering  during  twenty 
years,  was  compensated  in  one  moment  for  wounds  and  seques- 
trations by  his  sovereign's  kind  nod,  and  "  God  bless  you,  my 
old  friend!" 

Whitehall  naturally-  became  the  chief  staple  of  news. 
Whenever  there  was  a  rumour  that  anything  important  had 
happened  or  was  about  to  happen,  people  hastened  thither  to 
obtain  Intel. igence  from  the  fountain  head.  The  galleries 
presented  the  appearance  of  a  modern  club  room  at  an  anxious 
time.  They  were  full  of  people  enquiring  whether  the  Dutch 
mail  was  in,  what  tidings  the  express  from  France  had  brought, 
whether  John   Sobiesky  had  beaten   the  Turks,    whether  the 

*  See  Sir  Roger  North's  account  of  the  way  in  which  "Wright  was  made  a 
Judge,  and  Clarendon's  account  of  the  way  in  which  Sir  George  Savil'^  was  mads 
A  peer. 


U34  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Doge  of  Genoa  was  really  at  Paris.  These  were  matters  about 
W^hich  it  was  safe  to  talk  aloud.  But  there  were  subjects  con- 
cerning which  information  was  asked  and  given  in  whispers. 
Had  Halifax  orot  the  better  of  Rochester  ?  Was  there  to  be  a 
Parliament  ?  "Was  the  Duke  of  York  really  going  to  Scotland  ? 
Had  Monmouth  really  been  summoned  from  the  Hague  ?  Men 
tried  to  read  the  couutenauce  of  every  minister  as  he  went 
through  the  throng  to  and  from  the  royal  closet.  All  sorts  of 
auguries  were  drawn  from  the  tone  in  which  His  Majesty  spoke 
to  the  Lord  President,  or  from  the  laugh  with  which  His 
Majesty  honoured  a  jest  of  the  Lord  Privy  Seal ;  and  in  a  few 
hours  the  hopes  and  fears  inspired  by  such  slight  indications 
had  spread  to  all  the  coffee  houses  from  Saint  James's  to  the 
Tower.* 

The  coffee  house  must  not  be  dismissed  with  a  cursory  men- 
tion. It  might  indeed  at  that  time  have  been  not  improperly 
called  a  most  important  political  institution.  No  Parliament 
had  sat  for  years.  The  municipal  council  of  the  City  had  ceased 
to  speak  the  sense  of  the  citizens.  Public  meetings,  harangues, 
resolutions,  and  the  rest  of  the  modern  machinery  of  agitation 
had  not  yet  come  into  fashion.  Nothing  resembling  the  modern 
newsp.aper  existed.  In  such  circumstances  the  coffee  houses 
were  the  chief  organs  through  which  the  public  opinion  of  the 
me£ropolis  vented  itself. 

The  first  of  these  establishments  had  been  set  up  by  a  Turkey 
merchant,  who  had  acquired  among  the  Mahometans  a  taste  for 
their  favourite  beverage.  The  convenience  of  being  able  to 
make  appointments  in  any  part  of  the  town,  and  of  being  able 
to  pass  evenings  socially  at  a  very  small  charge,  was  so  great 
that  the  fashion  spread  fast.  Every  man  of  the  upper  or  middle 
class  went  daily  to  his  coffee  house  to  learn  the  news  and  to  dis- 
cuss it.  Every  coffee  house  had  one  or  more  orators  to  whose 
eloquence  the  crowd  listened  with  admiration,  and  who  soon  be- 

*  The  sources  from  which  I  have  drawn  my  information  about  the  state  of 
the  Court  are  too  numei*ous  to  recapitulate.  Among  them  are  the  Despatches 
of  Barillon,  Van  Citters,  Ronquillo,  and  Adda,  the  Travels  of  the  Grand  T)uke 
Cosmo,  the  works  of  Roger  North,  the  Diaries  of  Pepys,  Evelyn,  and  T<^nge, 
and  the  Memoirs  of  Grammont  and  Reresby. 


STATE  OF  ENGLAND  IN  1685.  385 

ame,  what  the  journalists  of  our  time  have  been  called,  a  fourth 
Estate  of  the  realm.  The  Court  had  long  seen  with  uneasiness 
the  growth  of  this  new  joower  in  the  state.  An  attempt  had 
been  made,  during  Danby's  administration,  to  close  the  coffee 
houses.  But  men  of  all  parties  missed  their  usual  places  of 
resort  so  much  that  there  was  an  universal  outcry.  The  govern- 
ment did  not  venture,  in  opposition  to  a  feeling  so  strong  and 
general,  to  enforce  a  regulation  of  which  the  legality  might  well 
be  questioned.  Since  that  time  ten  years  had  elapsed,  and  during 
those  years  the  number  and  influence  of  the  coffee  houses  had 
been  constantly  increasing.  Foreigners  remarked  that  the  coffee 
house  was  that  which  especially  distinguished  London  from  all 
other  cities  ;  that  the  coffee  house  was  the  Londoner's  home,  and 
(/'that  those  who  wished  to  find  a  gentleman  commonly  asked, 
not  whether  he  lived  in  Fleet  Street  or  Chancery  Lane,  but 
whether  he  frequented  the  Grecian  or  the  Rainbow.  Nobody 
was  excluded  from  these  places  who  laid  down  his  penny  at  the 
bar.  Yet  every  rank  and  profession,  and  every  shade  of  religious 
and  political  opinion,  had  its  own  head  quarters.  There  were 
houses  near  Saint  James's  Park  where  fops  congregated,  their 
heads  and  shoulders  covered  with  black  or  flaxen  wigs,  not  less 
ample  than  those  which  are  now  worn  by  the  Chancellor  and  by 
the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  wig  came  from 
Paris  and  so  did  the  rest  of  the  fine  gentleman's  ornaments,  his  em- 
broidered coat,  his  fringed  gloves,  and  the  tassel  which  upheld 
his  pantaloons.  The  conversation  was  in  that  dialect  which, 
long  after  it  had  ceased  to  be  spoken  in  fashionable  circles,  con- 
tinued, in  the  mouth  of  Lord  Foppington,  to  excite  the  mirth  of 
theatres.*  The  atmosphere  was  like  that  of  a  perfumer's  shop. 
Tobacco  in  any  other  form  than  that  of  richly  scented  snuff 
was  held  in  abomination.  II  any  clown,  ignorant  of  the  usages 
of  the  house,  called  for  a  pipe,  the  sneers  of  the  whole  assembly 
and  the  short  answers  of  the  waiters  soon  convinced  him  that  he 

*  The  chief  peculiarity  of  this  dialect  was  that,  in  a  large  class  of  words,  the 
Owas  pronounced  like  A.  Thus  Lord  was  pronounced  Lard.  See  Vanbrugh's 
Relapse.  Lord  Sunderland  was  a  great  master  of  this  court  tune,  as  Roger 
North  calls  it ;  and  Titus  Gates  affected  it  in  the  hope  of  passing  for  a  fine  gentle 
man.    Examen,  77, 254. 


336  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

had  better  go  somewhere  else.  Nor,  indeed,  would  he  have  had 
far  to  go.  For,  in  general  the  coffee  rooms  reeked  with  tobacco 
like  a  guardroom:  and  strangers  sometimes  expressed  their 
surprise  that  so  many  people  should  leave  their  own  firesides  to 
sit  in  the  midst  of  eternal  fog  and  stench.  Nowhere  was  the 
smoking  more  constant  than  at  AVill's.  That  celebrated  house, 
situated  between  Covent  Garden  and  Bo  .v  Street,  was  sacred  to 
polite  letters.  There  the  talk  was  about  poetical  justice  and 
the  unities  of  place  and  time.  There  was  a  faction  for  Perrault 
and  the  moderns,  a  faction  for  Boileau  and  the  ancients.  One 
group  debated  whether  Paradise  Lost  ought  not  to  have  been  in 
rhyme.  To  another  an  envious  poetaster  demonstrated  that 
Venice  Preserved  ought  to  have  been  hooted  from  the  stage. 
Under  no  roof  was  a  greater  variety  of  figures  to  be  seen. 
There  were  Earls  in  stars  and  garters,  clergymen  in  cassocks 
and  bands,  pert  Templars,  sheepish  lads  from  the  Universities, 
translators  and  index  makers  in  ragged  coats  of  frieze.  The 
great  press  was  to  get  near  the  chair  where  John  Dry  den  sate. 
In  winter  that  chair  was  always  in  the  warmest  nook  by  the  fire ; 
in  summer  it  stood  in  the  balcony.  To  bow  to  the  Laureate, 
and  to  hear  his  opinion  of  Racine's  last  tragedy  or  of  Bossu's 
treatise  on  epic  poetry,  was  thought  a  privilege.  A  pinch  from 
his  snuff  box  was  an  honour  sufficient  to  turn  the  head  of  a  vounof 
enthusaist.  There  were  coffee  houses  where  the  first  medical 
men  might  be  consulted.  Doctor  John  Radcliffe,  who,  in  the 
year  1685,  rose  to  the  largest  practice  in  London,  came  daily,  at 
the  hour  when  the  Exchange  was  full,  from  his  house  in  Bow 
Street,  then  a  fashionable  part  of  the  capital,  to  Garrawny's, 
and  was  to  be  found,  surrounded  by  surgeons  and  apothecaries, 
at  a  particular  table.  There  were  Puritan  coffee  houses  where 
no  oath  was  heard,  and  where  lankhaired  men  discussed  election 
and  reprobation  through  their  noses  ;  Jew  coffee  houses  where 
darkey ed  money  changers  from  Venice  and  Amsterdam  greeted 
each  other  ;  and  Popish  coffee  houses  where,  as  good  Protestants 
believed,  Jesuits  planned,  over  their  cups,  another  great  fire,  and 
cast  silver  bullets  to  shoot  the  King.* 
*  Lettres  sur  les  Anglois ;  Tom  Brown's  Tour  ;  Ward's  London  Spy  ;  The  Char- 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  337 

These  gregarious  habits  had  no  small  share  in  forming  the 
character  of  the  Londoner  of  that  age.  He  was,  indeed,  a  dif, 
ferent  being  from  the  rustic  Englishman.  There  was  not  then 
the  intercourse  which  now  exists  between  the  two  classes. 
Only  very  great  men  were  in  the  habit  of  dividing  the  year  be- 
tween town  and  country.  Few  esquires  came  to  the  capital 
thrice  in  their  lives.  Nor  was  it  yet  the  practice  of  all  citizens 
in  easy  circumstances  to  breathe  the  fresh  air  of  the  fields  and 
woods  during  some  weeks  of  every  summer,  A  cockney,  in  a 
rural  village,  was  stared  at  as  much  as  if  he  had  intruded  into  a 
Kraal  of  Hottentots.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  lord  of  a 
Lincolnshire  or  Shropshire  manor  appeared  in  Fleet  Street,  he 
was  as  easily  distinguished  from  the  resident  population  as  a 
Turk  or  a  Lascar.  His  dress,  his  gait,  his  accent,  the  manner 
in  which  he  gazed  at  the  shops,  stumbled  into  the  gutters,  ran 
against  the  porters,  and  stood  under  the  waterspouts,  marked 
him  out  as  an  excellent  subject  for  the  operations  of  swindlers 
and  banterers.  Bullies  jostled  him  into  the  kennel.  Hackney 
coachmen  splashed  him  from  head  to  foot.  Thieves  explored 
with  perfect  security  the  huge  pockets  of  his  horseman's  coat, 
while  he  stood  entranced  by  the  splendour  of  the  Lord  Mayor's 
show.  Moneydroppers,  sore  from  the  cart's  tail,  introduced 
themselves  to  him,  and  appeared  to  him  the  most  honest  friendjy 
gentlemen  that  he  had  ever  seen.  Painted  women,  the  refuse 
of  Lewkner  Lane  .and  Whetstone  Park,  passed  themselves  on 
him  for  countesses  and  maids  of  honour.  If  he  asked  his  way 
to  Saint  James's,  his  informants  sent  him  to  Mile  End.  If  he 
went  into  a  shop,  he  was  instantly  discerned  to  be  a  fit  pur- 
chaser of  everything  that  nobody  else  would  buy,  of  second- 
hand embroidery,  copper  rings,  and  watches  that  would  not  go. 
If  he  rambled  into  any  fashionable  coffee  house,  ne  became  a 
mark  for  the   insolent  derision  of  fops  and  the  grave  waggery 

acter  of  a  Coffee  House,  1673  ;  Rules  and  Orders  of  the  Coffee  House,  1074  ;  Cof- 
fee Houses  vindicated,  1G75  ;  A  Satyr  against  Coffee  ;  Norths  Examen,  138  ;  Life 
of  Guildford«152  ;  Life  of  Sir  Dudley  North,  149  ;  Life  of  Dr.  Kadclifle,  published 
by  CurU  in  1715.  The  liveliest  description  of  Will's  is  in  the  City  and  Country 
Mouse.  There  is  a  remarkable  passage  about  the  influence  of  the  coffee  bousQ 
orators  in  Halstead's  Succinct  Genealogies,  printed  in  1685. 


338  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

of  Templars.  Enraged  and  mortified,  he  soon  returned  to  his 
mansion,  and  there,  in  the  homage  of  his  tenants  and  the  con- 
versation of  his  boon  companions,  found  consolation  for  the 
vexations  and  humiliations  wliich  he  had  under<rone.  There 
he  was  once  more  a  great  man,  and  saw  nothing  above  himself 
except  when  at  the  assizes  he  took  his  seat  on  the  bench  near 
the  Judge,  or  when  at  the  muster  of  the  militia  he  saluted  the 
Lord  Lieutenant. 

The  chief  cause  which  made  the  fusion  of  the  different  ele- 
ments of  society  so  imperfect  was  the  extreme  difficulty  which 
our  ancestors  found  in  passing  from  place  to  place.  Of  all  m- 
ventions,  the  alphabet  and  the  printing  press  alone  excepted, 
those  inventions  which  abridge  distance  have  done  most  for  the 
civilisation  of  our  species.  Every  improvement  of  the  means 
of  locomotion  benefits  mankind  morally  and  intellectuallv  as 
well  as  materially,  and  not  only  facilitates  the  interchange  of 
the  various  productions  of  nature  and  art,  but  tends  to  remove 
national  and  provincial  antipathies,  and  to  bind  together  all  the 
branches  of  the  great  human  family.  In  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury the  inhabitants  of  London  wei'e,  for  almost  every  practical 
purpose,  farther  from  Reading  than  they  now  are  from  Edin- 
burgh, and  farther  from  Edinburgh  than  they  now  are  from 
Vienna. 

The  subjects  of  Charles  the  Second  were  not,  it  is  true, 
quite  unacquainted  with  that  principle  which  has,  in  our  own 
time,  produced  an  unprecedented  revolution  in  human  affairs, 
which  has  enabled  navies  to  advance  in  face  of  wind  and  tide, 
and  brigades  of  troops,  attended  by  all  their  baggage  and  artil- 
lery, to  traverse  kingdoms  at  a  pace  equal  to  that  of  the  fleetest 
race  horse.  The  Marquess  of  Worcester  had  recently  observed 
the  expansive  power  of  moisture  rarefied  by  heat.  After  many 
experiments  he  had  succeeded  in  constructing  a  rude  steam  en- 
gine, which  he  called  a  fire  water  work,  and  which  he  pro- 
nounced to  be  an  admirable  and  most  forcible  instrument  of 
propulsion.*     But  the  Marquess  was  suspected  to  be  a  mad' 

*  Century  of  Inventions,  1663,  No.  68 


STATE    OP    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  339 

man,  and  known  to  be  a  Papist.  Hi^  inventions,  therefore 
found  no  favourable  reception.  His  fire  water  work  might, 
perhaps,  furnish  matter  for  conversation  at  a  meeting  of  the 
Royal  Society,  but  was  not  applied  to  any  practical  purpose. 
There  were  no  railways,  except  a  few  made  of  timber,  on  which 
coals  were  carried  from  the  mouths  of  the  Northumbrian  pits 
to  the  banks  of  the  Tyae.*  There  was  very  little  internal 
communication  by  water.  A  few  attempts  had  been  made  to 
deepen  and  embank  the  natural  streams,  but  with  slender  suc- 
cess. Hardly  a  single  navigable  canal  had  been  even  projected. 
The  English  of  that  day  were  in  the  habit  of  talking  with 
mingled  a.imiration  and<les[);iir  of  the  immense  trench  by  which 
Lewis  the  Fourteenth  had  made  a  junction  between  the  j^tl an- 
tic and  the  Mediterranean.  They  little  thought  that  their 
country  would,  in  the  course  of  a  few  generations,  be  inter- 
sected, at  the  cost  of  private  adventurers,  by  artificial  rivers 
making  up  more  than  four  times  the  length  of  the  Thame?,  the 
Severn,  and  the  Trent  together. 

It  was  by  the  highways  that  both  travellers  and  goods  gen- 
erally passed  from  place  to  place  ;  and  tl»<<se  highways  a})pear 
to  have  been  far  worse  than  might  have  been  expected  from  the 
desree  of  wealth  and  civilisation  which  the  natiou  had  even  then 
attained.  On  the  best  lines  of  communication^  the  ruts  were 
deep,  the  descents  precipitous,  and  the  way  ofte<»  >uch  as  it  was 
hardly  possible  to  distinguish,  in  the  dusk,  from  *he  unenclosed 
heath  and  fen  which  lay  on  both  sides.  Ralph  Thorseby,  the 
antiquary,  was  in  danger  of  losing  his  way  on  the  great  North 
road,  between  Barnby  Moor  and  Tuxford,  and  actually  lost  his 
way  between  Doncaster  and  York. t  Pepys  and  his  wifo,  trav- 
elling in  their  own  coach,  lost  their  way  between  Newba^y  and 
Reading.  In  the  course  of  the  same  tour  they  lost  the'r  way 
near  Salisbury,  and  were  in  danger  of  having  to  pass  the  night 
on  the  plain,  t  It  was  only  in  fine  weather  that  the  whoR 
breadth  of  the  road  was  available  for  wheeled  vehicles.     Oftei 

*  North's  Life  of  Guildford,  136. 

t  Thoresby's  Diary,  Oct.  21,  1680,  Aug.  3,  1712. 

t  Pepys'a  Diary,  June  12  and  16, 1668. 


340  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  mud  lay  deep  on  the  right  and  the  left ;  and  only  a  narrow 
track  of  firm  ground  rose  above  the  quagmire,*  At  such  times 
obstructions  and  quarrels  were  frequent,  and  the  path  was  some- 
times blocked  up  during  a  long  time  by  carriers,  neither  of 
whom  would  break  the  way.  It  happened,  almost  every  day, 
that  coaches  stuck  fast,  until  a  team  of  cattle  could  be  procured 
from  some  neighbouring  farm,  to  tug  them  out  of  the  slough. 
But  in  bad  seasons  the  traveller  had  to  encounter  inconven- 
iences still  more  serious.  Thoresby,  who  was  in  the  habit  of 
travelling  between  Leeds  and  the  capital,  has  recorded,  in  his 
Diary,  such  a  series  of  perils  and  disasters  as  might  suffice  for  a 
journey  to  the  Frozen  Ocean  or  to  the  Desert  of  Sahara.  On 
one  occasion  he  learned  that  the  floods  were  out  between  Ware 
and  London,  that  passengers  had  to  swim  for  their  lives,  and 
that  a  higgler  had  perished  in  the  attempt  to  cross.  In  conse- 
quence of  these  tidings  he  turned  out  of  the  high  road,  and  was 
conducted  aci'oss  some  meadows,  where  it  was  necessary  for  him 
to  ride  to  the  saddle  skirts  in  water.f  In  the  course  of  another 
journey  he  narrowly  escaped  being  swept  away  by  an  inunda- 
tion of  the  Trent.  He  was  afterwards  detained  at  Stamford 
four  days,  on  account  of  the  state  of  the  roads,  and  then  ven- 
tured to  proceed  only  because  fourteen  members  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  who  were  going  up  in  a  body  to  Parliament  with 
guides  and  numerous  attendants,  took  him  into  their  company. $ 
On  the  roads  of  Derbyshire,  travellers  were  in  constant  fear  for 
their  necks,  and  were  frequently  compelled  to  alight  and  lead 
their  beasts.§  The  great  route  through  Wales  to  Holyhead 
was  in  such  a  state  that,  in  1 685,  a  viceroy,  going  to  Ireland, 
was  five  hours  in  travelling  fourteen  miles,  from  Saint  Asaph  to 
Conway.  Between  Conway  and  Beaumaris  he  was  forced  to 
walk  a  great  part  of  the  way  :  and  his  lady  was  carried  in  a  litter. 
His  coach  was,  with  much  difficulty,  and  by  the  help  of  many 
hands,  brought  after  him  entire.     In  general,  carriages  were 

*rbid.  Feb.  28,  IGfiO. 
t  Thoresby's  Diary.  May  17,  1695. 
t  Ibid.  Dec.  27,  170R. 

§  Tour  in  Derbyshire,  by  J.  Browne,  son  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  1662  ;  Cot- 
ton's Angler,  1676. 


STATE  OP  ENGLAND  IN  1685.  341 

taken  to  pieces  at  Conway,  and  borne,  on  the  shoulders  of  stout 
Welsh  peasants,  to  the  Menai  Straits.*  In  some  parts  of  Kent 
and  Sussex,  none  but  the  strongest  horses  could,  in  winter,  get 
through  the  bog,  in  which,  at  every  step,  they  sank  deep.  The 
markets  were  often  inaccessible  during  several  months.  It  is 
said  that  the  fruits  of  the  earth  were  sometimes  suifered  to  rot 
in  one  place,  while  in  another  place,  distant  only  a  few  miles, 
the  supply  fell  far  sliort  o'f  the  demand.  The  wheeled  carriages 
were,  m  this  district,  generally  pulled  by  oxen.f  When  Prince 
George  of  Denmark  visited  the  stately  mansion  of  Petworth  in 
wet  weather,  he  was  six  hours  in  going  nine  miles ;  and  it  was 
necessary  that  a  body  of  sturdy  hinds  should  be  on  each  side  of 
his  coach,  in  order  to  prop  it.  Of  the  carriages  which  conveyed 
his  retinue  several  were  upset  and  injured.  A  letter  from  one 
of  the  party  has  been  pi-eserved,  in  which  the  unfortunate 
courtier  complains  that,  during  fourteen  hours,  he  never  once 
alighted,  except  when  his  coach  was  overturned  or  stuck  fast  in 
the  mud. I 

One  chief  cause  of  the  badness  of  the  roads  seems  to  have 
been  the  defective  state  of  the  law.  Every  parish  was  bound 
to  repair  the  highways  which  passed  through  it.  The  peasantry 
were  forced  to  give  their  gratuitous  labour  six  days  in  the  year. 
If  this  was  not  sufficient,  hired  labour  was  employed,  and  the 
expense  was  met  by  a  parochial  rate.  That  a  route  connecting 
two  great  towns,  which  have  a  large  and  thriving  trade  with 
each  other,  should  be  maintained  at  the  cost  of  tlie  rural  pop- 
ulation scattei'ed  between  them  is  obviously  unjust  ;  and  this 
injustice  was  peculiarly  glaring  in  the  case  of  the  great  North 
road,  which  traversed  very  poor  and  thinly  inhabited  districts, 
and  joined  very  rich  and  populous  districts.  Indeed  it  was  not 
in  the  power  of  the  parishes  of  Huntingdonshire  to  mend  a  high- 
way worn  by  the  constant  traffic  between  the  West  Riding  of 
Yorkshire  and  London.     Soon  after  the  Restoration  this  griev- 

*  Correspondence  of  Henry  Earl  of  Clarendon,  Dec.  30,  1G85,  Jan.  1,  1686. 
t  Postlethwaite's  Dictionary,  Koads ;  History  of  liawkhurst,  in  the  Biblio- 
theca  Topographica  Britannica. 

t  Annals  of  Queen  Anne,  1703,  Appendix,  No.  3. 


342  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

ance  attracted  the  notice  of  Parliament ;  and  an  act,  the  first 
of  our  many  turnpike  acts,  was  passed,  imposing  a  small  toll  on 
travellers  and  goods,  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  some  parts  of 
this  important  line  of  communication  in  good  repair.*  This 
innovation,  however,  excited  many  murmurs ;  and  the  other 
great  avenues  to  the  capital  were  long  left  under  the  old  system. 
A  chancre  was  at  lenoth  effected,  but  not  without  much  diffi. 
culty.  For  unjust  and  absurd  taxation  to  which  men  are  ac- 
customed is  often  borne  far  more  willingly  than  the  most  reason- 
able impost  which  is  new.  It  was  not  till  many  toll  bars  had 
been  violently  pulled  down,  till  the  troops  had  in  many  districts 
been  forced  to  act  against  the  people,  and  till  much  blood  had 
been  shed,  that  a  good  system  was  introduced.!  By  slow 
degrees  reason  triumphed  over  prejudice ;  and  our  island  is  now 
crossed  in  every  direction  by  near  thirty  thousand  miles  of  turn- 
pike road. 

On  the  best  highways  heavy  articles  were,  in  the  time  of 
Charles  the  Second,  generally  conveyed  from  place  to  place  by 
stase  watrsons.  In  the  straw  of  these  vehicles  nestled  a  crowd 
of  passengers,  who  could  not  afford  to  travel  by  coach  or  on 
horseback,  and  who  were  prevented  by  infirmity,  or  by  the 
weight  of  their  luggage,  from  going  on  foot.  The  expense  of 
transmitting  heavy  goods  in  this  way  was  enormous.  From 
Loudon  to  Birmingham  the  charge  was  seven  pounds  a  ton  ; 
from  London  to  Exeter  twelve  pounds  a  ton.$  This  was  about 
fifteen  pence  a  ton  for  every  mile,  more  by  a  third  than  was 
afterwards  charged  on  turnpike  roads,  and  fifteen  times  what  is 
now  demanded  by  railway  companies.  The  cost  of  conveyance 
amounted  to  a  prohibitory  tax  on  many  useful  articles.  Coal 
in  particular  was  never  seen  except  in  the  districts  where  it 
was  produced,  or  in  the  districts  to  which  it  could  be  carried  by 
sea,  and  was  indeed  always  known  in  the  south  of  England  by 
the  name  of  sea  coal. 

•  15  Car.  IL  c.  1. 

t  The  evils  of  the  old  system  are  strikingly  set  forth  in  many  petitions  which 
Appear  in  the  Commons'  Journal  of  1725._      How  fierce  an  opposition  was  offered 
to  Ui«  new  system  may  be  learned  from  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  of  1749. 
Pestlathwftite'a  Diet.,  Roads. 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  343 

On 'byroads,  and  generally  throughout  the  country  north  of 
York  and  west  of  Exeter,  goods  were  carried  by  long  trains  of 
packhorses.  These  strong  and  patient  beasts,  the  breed  of 
which  is  now  extinct,  were  attended  by  a  class  of  men  who 
seem  to  have  borne  much  resemblance  to  the  Spanish  mule- 
teers, A  traveller  of  humble  condition  often  found  it  conve- 
nient to  perform  a  journey  mounted  on  a  packsaddle  between 
two  baskets,  under  the  care  of  these  haMy  guides.  The  ex- 
pense of  this  mode  of  conveyance  was  small.  But  the  caravan 
moved  at  a  foot's  pace ;  and  in  winter  the  cold  was  often  insup- 
portable.* 

The  rich  commonly  travelled  in  their  own  carriages,  with 
at  least  four  horses*  Cotton,  the  facetious  poet,  attempted  to 
go  from  London  to  the  Peak  with  a  single  pair,  but  found  at 
Saint  Albans  that  the  journey  would  be  insupportably  tedious, 
and  altered  his  plan.f  A  coach  and  six  is  in  our  time  never 
seen,  except  as  part  of  some  pageant.  The  frequent  mention 
therefore  of  such  equipages  in  old  books  is  likely  to  mislead 
us.  We  attribute  to  magnificence  what  was  really  the  effect 
of  a  very  disagreeable  necessity.  People,  in  the  time  of  Charles 
the  Second,  travelled  with  six  horses,  because  with  a  smaller 
number  there  was  great  danger  of  sticking  fast  in  the  mire. 
Nor  were  even  six  horses  always  sufficient.  Yanbrugh,  in  the 
succeeding  generation,  described  with  great  humour  the  way  in 
which  a  country  gentleman,  newly  chosen  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment, went  up  to  London.  On  that  occasion  all  the  exertion§ 
of  six  beasts,  two  of  which  had  been  taken  from  the  plough, 
could  not  save  the  family  coach  from  being  embedded  in  a 
quagmire. 

Public  carriages  had  recently  been  much  improved.  During 
the  years  which  immediately  followed  the  Restoration,  a  dili- 
gence ran  between  London  and  Oxford  in  two  days.  The 
passengers  slept  at  Beaconsfield.  At  length,  in  the  spring  of 
1669,  a  great  and  daring  innovation  was  attempted.     It  was 

*  Loidis  and  Elmete  ,  Marshall's  Rural  Economy  of  England,    In  1739  Roderio 
Random  came  from  Scotland  to  Newcastle  on  a  packhorse. 
t  Cotton's  Epistle  to  J,  Bradshaw. 


344  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

announced  that  a  vehicle,  described  as  the  F)  jing  Coach,  would 
perform  the  wiiole  journey  between  sunrise  and  sunset.  This 
spirited  undertaking  was  solemnly  considered  and  sanctioned  by 
the  Heads  of  the  University,  and  appears  to  have  excited  the 
same  sort  of  interest  which  is  excited  in"  our  own  time  by  the 
opening  of  a  new  railway.  The  Vicechancellor,  by  a  notice 
affixed  in  aL  public  places,  prescribed  the  hour  and  place  of 
departure.  The  success  of  the  experiment  was  complete.  At 
six  in  the  morning  the  carriage  began  to  move  from  before  the 
ancient  front  of  All  Souls  College ;  and  at  seven  in  the  evening 
the  adventurous  gentlemen  who  had  run  the  first  risk  were 
safely  deposited  at  their  inn  in  London.*  The  emulation  of 
the  sister  University  was  moved  ;  and  soon  a  diligence  was  set 
up  which  in  one  day  carried  passengers  from  Cambridge  to  the 
capital.  At  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Chai'les  the  Second,  flying 
carriages  ran  thrice  a  week  from  London  to  the  chief  towns. 
But  no  stage  coach,  indeed  no  stage  waggon,  appears  to  have 
proceeded  further  north  than  York,  or  further  west  than  Exeter. 
The  ordinary  day's  journey  of  a  flying  coach  was  about  fifty 
miles  in  the  summer ;  but  in  winter,  when  the  ways  were  bad 
and  the  nights  long,  little  more  than  thirty.  The  Chester 
coach,  the  York  coach,  and  the  Exeter  coach  generally  reached 
London  in  four  days  during  the  fine  season,  but  at  Christmas 
not  till  the  sixth  day.  The  passengers,  six  in  number,  were  all 
seated  in  the  carriage.  For  accidents  were  so  frequent  that  it 
would  have  been  most  perilous  to  mount  the  roof.  The  ordinary 
fare  was  about  twopence  halfpenny  a  mile  in  summer,  and  some- 
what more  in  winter.t 

This  mode  of  travelling,  which  by  Englishmen  of  the  pres- 
ent day  would  be  regarded  as  insufferably  slow,  seemed  to  our 
ancestors  wonderfully  and  indeed  alarmingly  rapid.  Lt.  a  work 
published  a  few  months  before  the  death  of  Charles  the  Second, 
the  flying  coaches  are  extolled  as  far  superior  to  any  similar 
vehicles  ever  known  in  the  world.    Their  velocity  is  the  subject 

•  Anthony  h  Wood's  Life  of  himself 

t  Chamberlayne'3  State  of  England,  1G84.    See  also  the  list  of  stage  coachea 
and  waggons  at  the  end  of  the  book,  entitled  Anglias  Metropolis,  1690, 


STATIC    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1 G85.  .  345 

of  special  commendation,  and  is  triumphantly  contrasted  with 
the  sluggish  pace  of  the  continental  posts.  But  with  boasts  like 
these  was  mingled  the  sound  of  complaint  and  invective.  The 
interests  of  large  classes  had  been  unfavourably  affected  by  the 
establishment  of  the  new  diligences  ;  and,  as  usual,  many  per- 
sons were,  from  mere  stupidity  and  obstinacy,  disposed  to 
clamour  against  the  innovation,  simply  because  it  was  an  inno- 
vation. It  was  vehemently  argued  that  this  mode  of  convey- 
ance would  be  fatal  to  the  breed  of  horses  and  to  the  noble  art 
of  horsemanship ;  that  the  Thames,  which  had  long  been  an 
important  nursery  of  seamen,  would  cease  to  be  the  chief  thorough- 
fare from  London  up  to  "Windsor  and  down  to  Gravesend  ;  that 
saddlers  and  spurriers  would  be  ruined  by  hundreds  j  that 
numerous  inns,  at  which  mounted  travellers  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  stopping,  would  be  deserted,  and  would  no  longer  pay 
any  rent ;  that  the  new  carriages  were  too  hot  in  summer  and 
too  cold  in  winter ;  that  the  passengers  were  grievously  annoyed 
by  invalids  and  crying  children ;  that  the  coach  sometimes 
reached  the  inn  so  late  that  it  was  impossible  to  get  sujiper, 
and  sometimes  started  so  early  that  it  was  impossible  to  get 
breakfast.  On  these  grounds  it  was  gravely  recommended 
that  no  public  coach  should  be  permitted  to  have  more  than 
four  horses,  to  start  oftener  than  once  a  week,  or  to  go  more 
than  thirty  miles  a  day.  It  was  hoped  that,  if  this  regulation 
were  adopted,  all  except  the  sick  and  the  lame  would  return  to 
the  old  mode  of  travelling.  Petitions  embodying  such  opinions 
as  these  were  presented  to  the  King  in  council  from  several 
companies  of  the  City  of  London,  from  several  provincial  towns 
and  from  the  justices  of  several  counties.  We  smile  at  these 
things.  It  is  not  impossible  that  our  descendants,  when  they 
read  the  history  of  the  opposition  offered  by  cupidity  and  preju- 
dice to  the  improvements  of  the  nineteenth  century,  may  smile 
in  their  turn.* 


•  John  Cresset's  Reasons  for  suppressing  Stage  Coaches,  1G72.  These  reasons 
were  afterwards  inserted  iu  a  tract,  entitled  "  The  Grand  Concern  of  England 
explained,  1673."  Cresset's  attack  on  stage  coaches  called  forth  some  auBwers 
which  I  have  consulted. 


346  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

In  spite  of  the  attractions  of  the  flying  coaches,  it  was  still 
usual  for  men  who  enjoyed  health  and  vigour,  and  who  were 
not  encumbered  by  much  baggage,  to  perform  long  journeys  on 
horseback.  If  the  traveller  wished  to  move  expeditiously  he 
rode  post.  Fresh  saddle  horses  and  guides  were  to  be  procured 
at  convenient  distances  along  all  the  great  lines  of  road.  The 
charge  was  threepence  a  mile  for  each  horse,  and  fourpence  a 
stage  for  the  guide.  In  this  manner,  when  the  ways  were  good, 
it  was  possible  to  travel,  for  a  considerable  time,  as  rapidly  as 
by  any  conveyance  known  in  England,  till  vehicles  were  pro- 
pelled by  steam.  There  were  as  yet  no  post  chaises  ;  nor  could 
those  who  rode  in  their  own  coaches  ordinarily  procure  a  change 
of  horses.  The  King,  however,  and  the  great  officers  of  state 
were  able  to  command  relays.  Thus  Charles  commonly  went 
in  one  day  from  Whitehall  to  New-market,  a  distance  of  about 
fifty-five  miles  through  a  level  country ;  and  this  was  thought 
by  his  subjects  a  proof  of  great  activity.  Evelyn  performed 
the  same  journey  in  company  with  the  Lord  Treasurer  Clifford. 
The  coach  was  drawn  by  six  horses,  which  were  changed  at 
Bishop  Stortford  and  again  at  Chesterford.  The  travellers 
reached  Newmarket  at  night.  Such  a  mode  of  conveyance 
seems  to  have  been  considered  as  a  rare  luxury  confined  to 
princes  and  minis'^ers.* 

Whatever  might  be  the  way  in  which  a  journey  was  per- 
formed, the  travellers,  unless  they  were  numerous  and  well 
armed,  ran  considerable  risk  of  being  stopped  and  plundered. 
The  mounted  highwayman,  a  marauder  known  to  our  genera- 
tion only  from  books,  was  to  be  found  on  every  main  road. 
The  waste  tracts  which  lay  on  the  great  routes  near  London 
were  especially  haunted  by  plunderers  of  this  class.  Hounslow 
Heath,  on  the  Great  Western  Road,  and  Finchley  Common,  on 
the  Great  Northern  Road,  were  perhaps  the  most  celebrated  of 
these  spots.  The  Cambridge  scholars  trembled  when  they  ap- 
proached Epping  Forest,  even  in  broad  daylight.  Seamen  who 
had  just  been  paid  off  at  Chatham  were  often  compelled  to 

*  Chamberlayne'8  State  of  England,  1634 ;   North's  Examen,  105 ;  ETelyn'* 
piary,  Oct.  9,10,  1671. 


■''  STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  347 

deliver  their  purses  on  Gadsliill,  celebrated  near  a  hundred 
years  earlier  by  the  greatest  of  poets  as  the  scene  of  the  depre-  ^ 
dations  of  Falstaff.  The  public  authorities  seem  to  have  been 
often  at  a  loss  how  to  deal  with  the  plunderers.  At  one  time 
it  was  announced  in  the  Gazette,  that  several  persons,  who 
were  strongly  suspected  of  being  highwaymen,  but  against 
whom  there  was  not  sufficient  evidence,  would  be  paraded  at 
Newsate  in  ridinir  dresses;  their  horses  would  also  be  shown; 
and  all  gentlemen  who  had  been  robbed  were  invited  to  inspect 
this  singular  exhibition.  On  another  occasion  a  pardon  was 
publicly  offered  to  a  robber  if  he  would  give  up  some  rough 
diamonds,  of  immense  value,  which  he  had  taken  when  he 
stopped  the  Harwich  mail.  A  short  time  after  appeared  another 
proclamation,  warning  the  innkeepers  that  the  eye  of  the  gov- 
ernment was  upon  them.  Tiieir  criminal  connivance,  it  was 
affirmed,  enabled  banditti  to  infest  the  roads  with  impunity. 
That  these  suspicions  were  not  without  foundation,  is  proved 
by  the  dying  speeches  of  some  penitent  robbers  of  that  age, 
who  appear  to  have  received  from  the  innkeepers  services 
much  resembling  those  which  Farquhar's  Boniface  rendered  to 
Gibbet.* 

It  was  necessary  to  the  success  and  even  to  the  safety  of 
the  highwayman  that  lie  should  be  a  bold  and  skilful  rider, 
and  that  his  manners  and  appearance  should  be  such  as  suited 
the  master  of  a  fine  horse.  He  therefore  held  an  aristocratical 
position  in  the  community  of  thieves,  ajjpeared  at  fashionable 
coffee  houses  and  gaming  houses,  and  betted  with  men  of  quality 
on  the  race  ground.f  Sometimes,  indeed,  he  was  a  man  of 
good  family  and  education.  A  romantic  interest  therefore  at- 
tached, and  perhaps  still  attaches,  to  the  names  of  freebooters 
of  this  class.  The  vulgar  eagerly  drank  in  tales  of  their  ferocity 
and  audacity,  of  their  occasional  acts   of  generosity  and  good 

*  See  the  London  Gazette,  May  14,  16T7,  August  4, 1687,  Dec.  5,  168T.     The 
last  confession  of  Augustin  King,  who  was  the  son  of  an  eminent  divine,  and 
had  been  educated  at  Cambridge  but  was  hanged  at  Colchester  in  March,  1688,  is 
highly  curious, 
t  Aimwell.  Pray  sir,  han't  I  seen  your  face  at  Will's  coffeehouse  ? 
Gibbet,  Yes,  sir,  and  at  "White's  too.— Beaux'  Stratagem. 


348  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  * 

nature,  of  their  amours,  of  their  miraculous  escapes,  of  their  des- 
perate struggles,  and  of  their  manly  bearing  at  the  bar  and  in  the 
cart.  Thus  it  was  related  of  William  Nevisou,  the  great  robber  of 
Yorkshire,  that  he  levied  a  quarterly  tribute  on  all  the  northern 
drovers,and,in  return,  not  only  spared  them  himself, but  protected 
them  against  all  other  thieves  ;  that  he  demanded  purses  in  the 
most  courteous  manner  ;  that  he  gave  largely  to  the  poor  what  he 
had  taken  from  the  rich  ;  that  his  life  was  once  spared  by  the  royal 
clemency,  but  that  he  again  tempted  his  fate,  and  at  length  died, 
in  1685,  on  the  gallows  of  York.*  It  was  related  how  Claude 
Duval,  the  French  page  of  the'  Duke  of  Richmond,  took  to  the 
road,  became  captain  of  a  formidable  gang,  and  had  the  honour 
to  be  named  first  in  a  royal  proclamation  against  notorious 
offenders  ;  how  at  the  head  of  his  troop  he  stopped  a  lady's 
coach,  in  which  there  was  a  booty  of  four  hundred  pounds  ;  how 
he  took  only  one  hundred,  and  suffered  the  fair  owner  to  ransom 
the  rest  by  dancing  a  corauto  with  him  on  the  heath  ;  how  his 
vivacious  gallantry  stole  away  the  hearts  of  all  women ;  how 
his  dexterity  at  sword  and  pistol  made  him  a  terror  to  all  men  ; 
how,  at  length,  in  the  year  1670,  he  was  seized  when  overcome 
by  wine  ;  how  dames  of  high  rank  visited  him  in  prison,  and 
with  tears  interceded  for  his  life  ;  how  the  King  would  have 
granted  a  pardon,  but  for  the  interference  of  Judge  Morton,  the 
terror  of  highwaymen,  who  threatened  to  resign  his  office  unless 
the  law  were  carried  into  full  effect ;  and  how,  after  the  execu- 
tion, the  corpse  lay  in  state  with  all  the  pomp  of  scutcheons, 
wax  lights,  black  hangings  and  mutes,  till  the  same  cruel  Judge, 
who  had  intercepted  the  mercy  of  the  crown,  sent  officers  to  dis- 
turb the  obsequies.f  In  these  anecdotes  there  is  doubtless  a 
large  mixture  of  fable ;  but  they  are  not  on  that  account 
unworthy  of  being  recorded  ;  for  it  is  both  an  authentic  and  an 

•  Gent's  Histoiy  of  York.  Another  marauder  of  the  same  description,  named 
Biss,  was  hanged  at  Salisbury  in  1695.  In  a  ballad  which  is  in  the  Pepysian 
Library,  he  is  represented  as  defending  himself  thus  before  the  Judge  : 

"What  say  you  now,  my  honoured  Lord, 
AV  hat  liarm  was  there  in  this  ? 
Rich,  wealthy  misers  were  abhorred 
B3'  brave,  freehearted  Biss." 

t  Pope's  Memoirs  of  Duval,  published  immediately  after  the  execution,  Oatos's 
"EIkuv  pacikiKf]^  Part  I.  '  , 


STATE    OP    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  349 

important  fact  that  such  tales,  whether  false  or  true,  were  heard 
by  oiir  ancestors  with  eagerness  and  faith. 

All  the  various  dangers  by  which  the  traveller  was  beset 
were  greatly  increased  by  darkness.  He  was  therefore  com- 
monly desix-ous  of  having  the  shelter  of  a  roof  during  the  night ; 
and  such  shelter  it  was  not  difficult  to  obtain.  From  a  very 
early  period  the  inns  of  England  had  been  renowned.  Our 
first  great  poet  had  described  the  excellent  accommodation  which 
they  afforded  to  the  pilgrims  of  the  fourteenth  century.  Nine 
and  twenty  persons,  with  their  horses,  found  room  in  the  wide 
chambers  and  stables  of  the  Tabard  in  Southwark.  The  food 
was  of  the  best,  and  the  wines  such  as  drew  the  company  on  to 
drink  largely.  Two  hundred  years  later,  under  the  reign  of  Eliza- 
beth, William  Harrison  gave  a  livefy  description  of  the  plenty 
and  comfort  of  the  great  hostelries.  The  Continent  of  Europe,  he 
said,  could  show  nothing  like  them.  There  were  some  in  which 
two  or  three  hundred  people,  with  their  horses,  could  without 
difficulty  be  lodged  and  fed.  The  bedding,  the  tapestry,  above 
all,  the  abundance  of  clean  and  fine  linen  was  matter  of  wonder. 
Valuable  plate  was  often  set  on  the  tables.  Nay,  there  were 
signs  which  had  cost  thirty  or  forty  pounds.  In  the  seventeenth 
century  England  abounded  with  excellent  inns  of  every  rank. 
The  traveller  sometimes,  in  a  small  village,  lighted  on  a  public 
house  such  as  Walton  has  described,  where  the  brick  floor  was 
swept  clean,  where  the  walls  were  stuck  round  with  ballads, 
where  the  sheets  smelt  of  lavender,  and  where  a  blazing  fire,  a 
cup  of  good  ale,  and  a  dish  of  trouts  fresh  from  the  neighbour- 
ing brook,  were  to  be  procured  at  small  charge.  At  the  larger 
houses  of  entertainment  were  to  be  found  beds  hung  with  silk, 
choice  cookery,  and  claret  equal  to  the  best  which  Avas  drunk 
in  London.*  The  innkeepers  too,  it  was  said,  were  not  like 
other  innkeepers.  On  the  Continent  jthe  landlord  was  the  tyrant 
of  those  who  crossed  the  threshold.  In  England  he  was  a  ser- 
vant.    Never  was  an  Englishman  more  at  home  than  when  he 

*  See  tlie  prologue  to  the  Canterbury  Tales,  Harrison's  Historical  Description 
of  the  Island  of  Great  Britain,  and  Pepys's  account  of  his  tour  in  the  summer  of 
1668.  The  excellence  of  the  English  inns  is  noticed  in  the  Travels  of  the  Grand 
Duke  Cosmo. 


S90  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

took  his  ease  in  his  inn.  Even  men  of  fortune,  who  might  in 
their  own  mansions  have  enjoyed  every  luxury,  were  often  in 
the  habit  of  passing  their  evening  in  the  parlour  of  some  neigh- 
bouring house  of  public  entertainment.  They  seem  to  have 
thought  that  comfort  and  freedom  could  in  no  other  place  be 
enjoyed  with  equal  perfection.  This  feeling  continued  during 
many  generations  to  be  a  national  peculiarity.  The  liberty  and 
jollity  of  inns  long  furnished  matter  to  our  novelists  and  drama- 
tists. Johnson  declared  that  a  tavern  chair  was  the  throne  of 
human  felicity  ;  and  Shenstone  gently  complained  that  no  private 
roof,  however  friendly,  gave  the  wanderer  so  warm  a  welcome 
as  that  which  was  to  be  found  at  an  inn. 

Many  conveniences,  which  were  unknown  at  Hampton  Court 
and  Whitehall  in  the  seventeenth  century,  are  in  all  modern 
hotels.  Yet  on  the  whole  it  is  certain  that  the  improvement  of 
our  houses  of  public  entertainment  has  by  no  means  kept  pace 
with  the  improvement  of  our  roads  and  of  our  conve3'ances. 
Nor  is  this  strange  ;  for  it  is  evident  that,  all  other  circumstances 
being  supposed  equal,  the  inns  will  be  best  where  the  means  of 
locomotion  are  worst.  The  quicker  the  rate  of  travelling,  the 
less  important  is  it  that  there  should  be  numerous  agreeable 
resting  places  for  the  traveller.  A  hundred  and  sixty  years  ago 
a  person  who  came  up  to  the  capital  from  a  remote  county  gener- 
ally required,  by  the  way,  twelve  or  fifteen  meals,  and  lodging 
for  five  or  six  nights.  If  he  were  a  great  man,  he  expected  the 
meals  and  lodging  to  be  comfortable,  and  even  luxurious.  At 
present  we  fly  from  York  or  Exeter  to  London  by  the  light  of 
a  single  winter's  day.  At  present,  therefore,  a  traveller  sel- 
dom interrupts  his  journej'^  merely  for  the  sake  of  rest  and  re- 
freshment. The  consequence  is  that  hundreds  of  excellent  inns 
have  fallen  into  utter  decay.  In  a  short  time  no  good  houses 
of  that  description  will  be  found,  except  at  places  where  strangers 
are  likely  to  be  detained  by  business  or  pleasure. 

The  mode  in  which  correspondence  was  carried  on  between 
distant  places  may  excite  the  scorn  of  the  present  generation; 
yet  it  was  such  as  might  have  moved  the  admiration  and  envy 
of  the  polished  nations  of  antiquity,  or  of  the  contemporaries 


STATE   OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  35l 

of  Raleigh  and  Cecil.  A  rude  and  imperfect  establishment  of 
posts  for  the  conveyance  of  letters  had  been  set  up  by  Charles 
tlie  First,  and  had  been  swept  away  by  the  civil  war.  Under 
the  Commonwealth  the  design  was  resumed.  At  the  Restoration 
the  proceeds  of  the  Post  Office,  after  all  expenses  had  been 
paid,  were  settled  on  the  Duke  of  York.  On  most  lines  of  road 
the  mails  went  out  and  came  in  only  on  the  alternate  days.  In 
Cornwall,  in  the  fens  of  Lincolnshire,  and  among  the  hills  and 
lakes  of  Cumberland,  letters  were  received  only  once  a  week. 
During  a  royal  progress  a  daily  post  was  despatched  from  the 
capital  to  the  place  where  the  court  sojourned.  There  was  also 
daily  communication  between  London  and  the  Downs  ;  and  the 
same  privilege  was  sometimes  extended  to  Tunbridge  Wells  and 
Bath  at  the  seasons  when  those  places  were  crowded  by  the 
great.  The  bags  were  carried  on  horseback  day  and  night  at 
'the  r;Ue  of  about  five  miles  an  hour.*^ 

The  revenue  of  this  establishment  was  not  derived  solely 
from  the  charsre  for  the  transmission  of  letters.  The  Post 
Office  alone  was  entitled  to  furnish  post  horses  ;  and,  from  the 
care  with  which  this  monopoly  was  guarded,  we  may  infer  that 
it  was  found  profitable,  f  If?  indeed,  a  traveller  had  waited  half 
an  hour  without  being  supplied  he  might  hire  a  horse  wherever 
he  could. 

To  facilitate  correspondence  between  one  part  of  London 
and  another  was  not  originally  one  of  the  objects  of  the  Post 
Office.  But,  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  an  enterpris- 
ing citizen  of  London,  William  Dockwray,  set  up,  at  great  ex- 
pense, a  penny  post,  which  delivered  letters  and  parcels  six  or 
eight  times  a  day  in  the  busy  and  crowded  streets  near  the  Ex- 
change, and  four  times  a  day  in  the  outskirts  of  the  capital. 
This  improvement  was,  as  usual,  strenuously  resisted.  The 
porters  complained  that  their  interests  were  attacked,  and  tore 
down  tlie  placards  in  which  the  scheme  was  announced  to  the 
public.     The  excitement  caused  by  Godfrey's  death,  and  by  the 

•  Stat.  12  Oar.  II.  c.  35  ;  Chamberlayne's  State  of  England,  1684 ;  Angliae  Me- 
tropolis, 1690  ;  London  Gazette,  June  22,  1685,  August  15,  1687. 
+  Lend.  Gaz.,  Sept.  14,  1685. 


352  HISTORY   OP    ENGLAND. 

discovery  of  Coleman's  papers,  was  then  at  the  height.  A  cry 
was  therefore  raised  that  the  penny  post  was  a  Popish  contriv- 
ance. The  great  Doctor  Oiites,  it  was  affirmed,  had  hinted  a 
suspicion  that  the  Jesuits  were  at  the  bottom  of  the  scheme, 
and  that  the  bags,  if  examined,  would  be  found  full  of  treason.* 
The  utility  of  the  enterprise  was.  however,  so  great  and  obvious 
that  all  opposition  proved  fruitless.  As  soon  as  it  became  clear 
that  the  speculation  would  be  lucrative,  the  Duke  of  York  com- 
plained of  it  as  an  infraction  of  his  monopoly ;  and  the  courts 
of  law  decided  in  his  favour.! 

The  revenue  of  the  Post  Office  was  from  the  first  constantly 
increasing.  In  the  year  of  the  Restoration  a  committee  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  after  strict  enquiry,  had  estimated  the  net 
receipt  at  about  twenty  thousand  pounds.  At  the  close  of  the 
reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  the  net  receipt  was  little  short  of 
fifty  thousand  pounds  ;  aijfl  this  was  then  thought  a  stupendous 
sum.  The  gross  receipt  was  about  seventy  thousand  pounds. 
The  charge  for  conveying  a  snigle  letter  was  twopence  for 
eighty  miles,  and  threepence  for  a  longer  distance.  The  postage 
increased  in  proportion  to  the  weight  of  the  packet.  J  At  pre- 
sent a  single  letter  is  carried  to  the  extremity  of  Scotland  or  of 
Ireland  for  a  penny  ;  and  the  monopoly  of  post  horses  has  long 
ceased  to  exist.  Yet  the  gross  annual  receipts  of  the  depart- 
ment amount  to  more  than  eighteen  hundred  thousand  pounds, 
and  the  net  receipts  to  more  than  seven  hundred  thousand 
pounds.  It  is,  therefore,  scarcely  possible  to  doubt  that  the 
number  of  letters  now  conveyed  by  mail  is  seventy  times  the 
number  winch  was  so  conveyed  at  the  time  of  the  accession  of 
James  the  Second.  § 

No   part  of  the  load  which  the   old  mails   carried   out  was 
more  important  than  the  newsletters.     In  1685  nothing  like  the 

*  Smitb's  Current  Intelligence,  March  30,  and  April  3, 1680. 

t  Anglite  Metropolis,  1690. 

t  Commons'  Journals,  Sept.  4. 1660,  March^l,  1688-9;  Chamberlayne.  1684  ;  Dav- 
enant  on  the  Public  Revenue,  Discourse  IV. 

§  I  have  left  the  text  as  it  stood  in  1848.  In  the  year  1856  the  gross  receipt  of 
the  Post  Office  was  more  than  2,800,000L;  and  the  net  receipt  was  about  l,200,000i. 
The  number  of  letters  conveyed  by  post  was  478,000,000.  (1857). 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IX    1G85.  353 

London  daily  paper  of  our  time  existed,  or  could  exist.  Neither 
the  necessary  capital  nor  the  necessary  skill  was  to  be  found. 
Freedom  too  was  wanting,  a  want  as  fatal  as  that  of  either 
capital  or  skill.  The  press  was  not  indeed  at  that  moment 
under  a  general  censorship.  The  licensing  act,  which  had  been 
passed  soon  after  the  Restoration,  had  expired  in  1 G79.  Any 
person  might  therefore  print,  at  his  own  risk,  a  history,  a  ser- 
mon, or  a  ])oem,  without  the  previous  approbation  of  any  officer  ; 
but  the  Judges  were  unanimously  of  opinion  that  this  liberty 
did  not  extend  to  Gazettes,  and  that,  by  the  common  law  of 
England,  no  man,  not  authorised  by  the  crown,  had  a  right  to 
publish  political  news.*  While  the  Whig  party  was  still  for- 
midable, the  government  thought  it  expedient  occasionally  to 
connive  at  the  violation  of  this  rule.  During  the  great  battle 
of  the  Exclusion  Bill,  many  newspapers  were  suffered  to  appear, 
the  Protestant  Intelligence,  the  Current  Intelligence,  the 
Domestic  Intelligence,  the  True  News,  the  London  Mercury,  f 
None  of  these  was  published  oftener  than  twice  a  week.  None 
exceeded  in  size  a  single  small  leaf.  The  quantity  of  matter 
which  one  of  them  contained  in  a  year  was  not  more  than  is 
often  found  in  two  numbers  of  the  Times.  After  the  defeat  of 
the  Whigs  it  was  no  longer  necessary  for  the  King  to  be  spar- 
ing in  the  use  of  that  which  all  his  Judges  had  pronounced  to 
be  his  undoubted  prerogative.  At  the  close  of  his  reign  no 
newspaper  was  suffered  to  appear  without  his  allowance :  and 
his  allowance  was  given  exclusively  to  the  London  Gazette.  The 
London  Gazette  came  out  only  on  Mondays  and  Thursdays. 
The  contents  generally  were  a  royal  proclamation,  two  or  three 
Tory  addresses,  notices  of  two  or  three  promotions,  an  account 
of  a  skirmish  between  the  imperial  troops  and  the  Janissaries 
on  the  Danube,  a  description  of  a  highwayman,  an  announce- 
ment of  a  grand  cockfight  between  two  persons  of  honour,  and 
an  advertisement  offering  a  reward  for  a  strayed  dog.  The 
whole  made  up  two  pages  of  moderate  size.       Whatever  was 

*  London  Gazette,  ISIay  5,  and  17,  1680. 

t  There  is  a  very  curious,   and,  I  should  think,  unique  collection  of  thesft 
papers  in  the  British  Museum. 


354  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND, 

communicated  respecting  matters  of  the  highest  moment  was 
communicated  in  the  most  meagre  and  formal  style.  Some- 
times, indeed,  when  the  government  was  disposed  to  gratify  the 
public  curiosity  respecting  an  important  transaction,  a  broadside 
was  put  forth  giving  fuller  details  than  could  be  found  in  the 
Gazette  :  but  neither  the  Gazette  nor  any  supplementary  broad 
side  printed  by  authority  ever  contained  any  intelligence  which 
it  did  not  suit  the  purposes  of  the  Court  to  publish.  The  most 
important  parliamentary  debates,  the  most  important  slate  trials 
recorded  in  our  history,  were  passed  over  in  profound  silence.* 
In  the  capital  the  coffee  houses  supplied  in  some  measure  the 
place  of  a  journal.  Thither  the  Londoners  flocked,  as  the  Athe- 
nians of  old  flocked  to  the  market  place,  to  hear  whether  there 
was  any  news.  There  men  might  learn  how  brutally  a  Whig 
had  been  treated  the  day  before  in  Westminster  Hall,  what  hor- 
rible accounts  the  letters  from  Edinburgh  gave  of  the  torturing 
of  Covenanters,  how  grossly  the  Navy  Board  had  cheated 
the  crown  in  the  victualling  of  t)ie  fleet,  and  what  grave  charges 
the  Lord  Privy  Seal  had  brought  against  the  Treasury  in  the 
matter  of  the  hearth  money.  But  people  who  lived  at  a  dis- 
tance from  the  great  theatre  of  political  contention  could  be 
kept  regularly  informed  of  what  was  passing  there  only  by 
means  of  newsletters.  To  prepare  such  letters  became  a  calling 
in  London,  as  it  now  is  among  the  natives  of  India.  The  news- 
writer  rambled  from  coffee  room  to  coffee  room,  collecting  re- 
ports, squeezed  himself  into  the  Sessions  House  at  the  Old 
Bailey  if  there  was  an  interesting  trial,  nay  perhaps  obtained 
admission  to  the  gallery  of  Whitehall,  and  noticed  how  the 
King  and  Duke  looked.  In  this  way  he  gathered  materials  for 
weekly  epistles  destined  to  enlighten  some  county  town  or 
some  bench  of  rustic  magistrates.  Such  were  the  sources  from 
which  the  inhabitants  of  the  larg ost  provincial  cities,  and  the 
great  body  of  the  gentry  and  clergy,  learned  almost  all  that 
they  knew  of  the  history  of  their  own  time.     We  must  suppose 

*  For  example,  there  is  not  a  word  in  the  Gazette  about  the  important  parlia- 
mentary proceedings  of  November,  1685,  or  about  the  trial  and  acquittal  of  the 
Seven  Bishops- 


STATE  OF  ENGLAND  IN  1685.  355 

that  at  Cambridge  there  were  as  mauy  persons  curious  to  know 
what  was  passing  in  the  world  as  at  almost  any  piace  in  the  king- 
dom, out  of  London.  Yet  at  Cambridge,  during  a  great  part  of 
the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  the  Doctors  of  Laws  and  the 
Masters  of  Arts  had  no  regular  supply  of  news  except  through 
the  London  Gazette.  At  length  the  services  of  one  of  the  col- 
lectors of  intelligence  in  the  capital  were  employed.  That  was 
a  memorable  day  on  which  the  first  newsletter  from  London 
was  laid  on  the  table  of  the  only  coffee  room  in  Cambridge.* 
At  the  seat  of  a  man  of  fortune  in  the  country  the  newsletter 
was  impatiently  expected.  Within  a  week  after  it  had  arrived 
it  had  been  thumbed  by  twenty  families.  It  furnished  the 
neighboring  squires  with  matter  for  talk  over  their  October, 
and  the  neighboring  rectors  with  topics  for  sharp  sermons 
against  Whiggery  or  Popery.  Many  of  these  curious  journals 
might  doubtless  still  be  detected  by  a  diligent  search  in  the 
archives  of  old  families.  Some  are  to  be  found  in  our  public 
libraries ;  and  one  series,  which  is  not  the  least  valuable  part 
of  the  literary  treasures  collected  by  Sir  James  Mackintosh, 
will  be  occasionally  quoted  in  the  course  of  this  work.f 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  there  were  then  no 
provincial  newspapers.  Indeed,  except  in  the  capital  and  at  the 
two  Universities,  there  was  scarcely  a  printer  in  the  kingdoai. 
The  only  press  in  England  north  of  Trent  appears  to  have  been 
at  York.$ 


*  Roger  North's  Life  of  Dr.  John  North.  On  the  subject  of  newsletters,  soe 
the  Examen,  133. 

t  I  take  this  opportunity  of  expressing  my  warm  gratitude  to  the  family  of  my 
dear  and  honoured  f  rien4  Sir  James  Mackintosh  for  confiding  to  me  the  materials 
collected  by  him  at  a  time  when  ha»meditated  a  work  similar  to  that  which  I 
have  undertaken.  I  have  never  seen,  and  I  do  not  believe  that  there  anywhere 
exists,  within  the  same  compass,  so  noble  a  collection  of  extracts  from  public  and 
private  archives.  The  judgment  with  which  Sir  James,  in  great  masses  of  the 
rudest  ore  of  history,  selected  what  was  valuable,  and  rejected  what  was  worth- 
less, can  be  fully  appreciated  only  by  one  who  has  toiled  after  him  in  the  same 
mine. 

t  Life  of  Thomas  Gent.  A  complete  list  of  all  printing  houses  in  1724  will  be 
found  in  Nichols's  Literary  Anecdotes  of  the  eighteenth  century.  There  had 
then  been  a  great  increase  within  a  few  years  in  the  number  of  presses  ;  and  yet 
there  were  thirty-four  counties  in  which  there  was  no  printer,  one  of  those 
counties  being  Lancashire, 


356  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

It  was  not  only  by  means  of  the  London  Gazette  that  the 
government  undertook  to  furnish  political  instruction  to  the 
people.  That  journal  contained  a  scanty  supply  of  news  without 
comment.  Another  journal,  published  under  the  patronage  of 
the  court,  consisted  of  comment  without  news.  This  paper, 
called  the  Observator,  was  edited  by  an  old  Tory  pamphleteer 
named  Roger  Lestrange.  Lestrange  was  by  no  means  deficient 
in  readiness  and  shrewdness  ;  and  his  diction,  thouirh  coarse, 
and  disfigured  by  a  mean  and  flippant  jargon  which  then  passed 
for  wit  in  the  green  room  and  the  tavern,  was  not  without  keen- 
ness and  vigour.  But  his  nature,  at  once  ferocious  and  ignoble, 
showed  itself  in  every  line  that  he  penned.  When  the  first  Obser- 
vators  appeared  there  was  some  excuse  for  his  acrimony.  The 
Whigs  were  then  powerful ;  Sand  he  had  to  contend  against 
numerous  adversaries,  whose  unscrupulous  violence  might  seem 
to  justify  unsparing  retaliations  But  in  1685  all  the  oppositiDU 
had  been  crushed.  A  generous  spirit  would  have  disdained 
to  insult  a  party  which  could  not  reply,  and  to  aggravate  the 
misery  of  prisoners,  of  exiles,  of  bereaved  families  :  but  from 
the  malice  of  Lestrange  the  grave  was  no  hiding  place,  and  the 
house  of  mourning  no  sanctuary.  In  the  last  month  of  tlie 
reign  of  Charles  the  Second.  William  Jenkvn,  an  asjed  dissenting 
pastor  of  great  note,  who  had  been  cruelly  persecuted  for  no 
crime  but  that  of  worshipping  God  according  to  the  fashion 
generally  followed  throughout  Protestant  Europe,  died  of  hard- 
ships and  privations  at  Newgate.  The  outbreak  of  popular 
sympathy  coald  not  be  repressed.  The  corpse  was  followed  to 
the  grave  by  a  train  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  coaches.  Even 
courtiers  looked  sad.  Even  the  unthinkins  Kins:  showed 
some  signs  of  concern.  Lestrange  alone  set  up  ahowlof  savage 
exultation,  laughed  at  the  weak  compassion  of  the  Trimmers, 
proclaimed  that  the  blasphemous  old  impostor  had  met  with  a 
most  righteous  punishment,  and  vowed  to  wage  war,  not  only  to 
the  death,  but  after  death,with  all  the  mock  saints  and  martyrs.* 
Such   was   the  spirit  of  the  paper  which  was  at  this  time  the 

*  Observator,  Jan.  29,  ana  31,  1685 ;  Calamy's  Life  of  Baxter  ;  Nonconformist 
Memorial. 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  357 

oracle  of  the  Tory  party,  and  especially  of  the  parochial 
clergy. 

Literature  which  could  be  carried  by  the  post  bag  then 
formed  the  greater  part  of  the  intellectual  nutriment  ruminated 
by  the  country  divines  and  country  justices.  The  difficulty  and 
expense  of  conveyuig  large  packets  from  place  to  place  was  so 
great,  that  an  extensive  work  was  longer  in  making  its  way 
from  Paternoster  Row  to  Devonshire  or  Lancashire  than  it  now 
is  in  reaching  Kentucky.  How  scantily  a  rural  parsonage  was 
then  furnished,  even  with  books  the  most  necessary  to  a  theo- 
logian, has  already  been  remarked.  The  houses  of  the  gentry 
were  not  more  plentifully  supplied.  Few  knights  of  the  shire 
had  libraries  so  good  as  may  now  perpetually  be  found  in  a  serv- 
ants' hall  or  in  the  back  parlour  of  a  small  shopkeeper.  An  esquire 
passed  among  his  neighbours  for  a  great  scholar,  if  Hudibras  and 
Baker's  Chronicle,  Tarlton's  Jests  and  the  Seven  Champions  of 
Christendom,  lay  in  his  hall  window  among  the  fishing  rods  and 
fowling  pieces.  No  circulating  library,  no  book  societ}'-,  then 
existed  even  in  the  capital  :  but  in  the  capital  those  students 
who  could  not  a£Eord  to  purchase  largely  had  a  resource.  The 
shops  of  the  great  booksellers,  near  Saint  Paul's  Churchyard, 
were  crowded  every  day  and  all  day  long  with  readers ;  and  a 
known  customer  was  often  permitted  to  carry  a  volume  home.  In 
the  country  there  was  no  such  accommodation  ;  and  every  man 
was  under  the  necessity  of  buying  whatever  he  wished  to  read.* 

As  to  the  lady  of  the  manor  and  her  daughters,  their  literary 
stores  generally  consisted  of  a  prayer  book  and  receipt  book. 
But  in  truth  they  lost  little  by  living  in  rural  seclusion.  For, 
even  in  the  highest  ranks,  and  in  those  situations  which  afforded 
the  greatest  facilities  for  mental  improvement,  the  English 
women  of  that  generation  were  decidedly  worse  educated  than 
they  have  been  at  any  other  time  since  the  revival  of  learning. 
At  an  early  period  they  had  studied  the  masterpieces  of  ancient 

*  Cotton  seems,  from  his  Angler,  to  have  found  room  for  his  whole  library  in 
his  hall  window  ;  and  Cotton  was  a  man  of  letters.  Even  when  Franklin  first 
visited  London  in  1724,  circulating  libraries  were  unknown  there.  The  crowd  at  the 
booksellers'  shops  iu  Little  Britain  is  mentioned  by  Roger  North  in  his  life  of 
his  brother  John. 


358  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

• 

genius.  In  the  present  day  they  seldom  bestow  much  attention 
on  the  dead  languages  ;  but  they  are  familiar  with  the  tongue  of 
Pascal  and  Moliere,  with  the  tongue  of  Dante  and  Tasso,  with 
the  tongue  of  Goethe  and  Schiller ;  nor  is  there  any  purer  or 
more  graceful  English  than  that  which  accomplished  women 
now  speak  and  write.  But,  during  the  latter  part  of  the  sev- 
enteenth century,  the  culture  of  the  female  mind  seems  to  have 
been  almost  entirely  neglected.  If  a  damsel  had  the  least  smat- 
tering of  literature  she  was  regarded  as  a  prodigy.  Ladies  higlily 
born,  highly  bred,  and  naturally  quick  witted,  were  unable  to 
write  a  line  in  their  mother  tongue  without  solecisms  and  faults  of 
spelling  such  as  a  charity  girl  would  now  be  ashamed  to  commit.* 
The  explanation  may  easily  be  found.  Extravagant  licen- 
tiousness, the  natural  effect  of  extravagant  austerity,  was  now 
the  mode  ;  and  licentiousness  had  produced  its  ordinary  effect, 
the  moral  and  intellectual  degradation  of  women.  To  their 
personal  beauty,  it  was  the  fashion  to  pay  rude  and  impudent 
homage.  But  the  admiration  and  desire  which  they  inspired 
were  seldom  mingled  with  respect,  with  affection,  or  with  any 
chivalrous  sentiment.  The  qualities  which  fit  them  to  be  com- 
panions, advisers,  confidential  friends,  rather  repelled  than 
attracted  the  libertines  of  Whitehall.  In  that  court  a  maid  of 
honour,  who  dressed  in  such  a  manner  as  to  do  full  justice  to  a 
white  bosom,  who  ogled  significant!}',  who  danced  voluptuously, 
who  excelled  in  pert  repartee,  who  was  not  ashamed  to  romp 
with  Lords  of  the  Bedchamber  and  Captains  of  the  Guards,  to 
sing  sly  verses  with  sly  expression,  or  to  put  on  a  page's  dress 
for  a  frolic,  was  more  likely  to  be  followed  and  admiaed,  more 
likely  to  be  honoured  with  royal  attentions,  more  likely  to  win 
a  rich  and  noble  Imsband  than*  Jane  Grey  or  Lucy  Hutchinson 
would  have  been.  In  such  circumstances  the  standard  of  female 
attainments  was  necessarily  low ;  and  it  was  more  dangerous  to 

*  One  instance  will  suffice.  Queen  Mary,  the  daufjhter  of  James,  had  excel- 
lent natural  abilities,  had  been  educated  by  a  Bishop,  was  fond  of  history  and  poetry 
and  was  regarded  by  very  eminent  men  as  a  superior  woman.  There  is,  in  the  li- 
brary at  the  Hague,  a  superb  English  Bible  which  was  delivered  to  her  when  she 
was  crowned  in  Westminster  Abbey.  In  the  titlepage  are  these  words  in  her  own 
band,  "  This  book  was  given  the  King  and  I,  at  our  crownation.    Marie  B." 


STATC    OF    KKGLAND    IN    1685.  359 


be  above  that  staudard  than  to  be  beneath  it.  Extreme  i<ino- 
ranee  and  frivolity  were  thought  less  nnl)ecoming  in  a  lady  than 
the  slightest  tincture  of  pedantry.  Of  the  too  celebrated  women 
whose  faces  we  still  admire  on  the  walls  of  Hampton  Court, 
few  indeed  were  in  the  habit  of  reading  anything  more  valuable 
than  acrostics,  lampoons,  and  translations  of  the  Clelia  and  the 
Grand  Cyrus. 

The  literary  acquirements,  even  of  the  accomplished  gentle- 
men of  that  generation,  seem  to  have  been  somewhat  less  solid 
and  profound  than  at  an  earlier  or  a  later  period.  Greek  learn- 
ing, at  least,  did  not  flourish  among  us  in  the  days  of  Charles 
the  Second,  as  it  had  flourished  before  the  civil  war,  or  as  it 
again  flourished  long  after  the  Revolution.  There  were  un- 
doubtedly scholars  to  whom  the  whole  Greek  literature,  from 
Homer  to  Photius,  was  familiar :  but  such  scholars  were  to  be 
found  almost  exclusively  among  the  clergy  resident  at  the 
Universities,  and  even  at  the  Universities  were  few,  and  were 
not  fully  appreciated.  At  Cambridge  it  was  not  thought  by 
any  means  necessary  that  a  divine  should  be  able  to  read  the 
Gospels  in  the  original.*  Nor  was  the  standard  at  Oxford 
higher.  When,  in  the  reign  of  William  the  Third,  Christ 
Church  rose  up  as  one  man  to  defend  the  genuineness  of 
the  Epistles  of  Phalaris,  that  great  college,  then  considered  as 
the  first  seat  of  philology  in  the  kingdom,  could  not  muster 
such  a  stock  of  Attic  learning  as  is  now  possessed  by  several 
youths  at  every  great  public  school.  It  may  easily  be  supposed 
that  a  dead  lansjuaije,  neglected  at  the  Universities,  was  not 
much  studied  by  men  of  the  world.  In  a  former  age  the  poetry 
and  eloquence  of  Greece  had  been  the  delight  of  Raleigh  and 
Falkland.  In  a  later  age  the  poetry  and  eloquence  of  Greece 
were  the  delight  of  Pitt  and  Fox,  of  Windham  and  Grenville. 
But  during  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century  there  was 
in  England  scarcely  one  eminent  statesman  who  could  read 
with  enjoyment  a  page  of  Sophocles  or  Plato. 

Good    Latin   scholars  were   numerous.     The    language    of 

*  Roger  North  tells  us  that  his  brother  John,  who  w.ia  Greek  professor  at 
Cambridge,  complained  bitterly  of  the  general  neglect  of  the  Greek  tongue 
among  the  academical  clergy. 


SCO  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

Rome,  indeed,  had  not  altogether  lost  its  imperial  prerogatives, 
and  was  still,  in  many  parts  of  Europe,  almost  indispensahle  to 
a  traveller  or  a  negotiator.  To  speak  it  well  was  therefore  a 
much  more  common  accomplishment  than  in  our  time;  and 
neither  Oxford  nor  Cambridge  wanted  poets  who,  on  a  great 
occasion,  could  lay  at  the  foot  of  the  throne  happy  imitations  of 
the  verses  in  which  Virgil  and  Ovid  had  celebrated  the  great- 
ness of  Augustus. 

Yet  even  the  Latin  was  giving  way  to  a  younger  rival. 
France  united  at  that  time  almost  every  species  of  ascendency. 
Her  military  glory  was  at  the  height.  She  had  vanquished 
mighty  coalitions.  She  had  dictated  treaties.  She  had  sub- 
jugated great  cities  and  provinces.  She  had  forced  the  Castilian 
pride  to  yield  her  the  precedence.  She  had  summoned  Italian 
princes  to  prostrate  themselves  at  her  footstool.  Her  authority 
was  supreme  in  all  matters  of  good  breeding,  from  a  duel  to  a 
minuet.  She  determined  how  a  gentleman's  coat  must  be  cut, 
how  long  his  peruke  must  be,  whether  his  heels  must  be  high 
or  low,  and  whether  the  lace  on  his  hat  must  be  broad  or  nar- 
row. In  literature  she  gave  law  to  the  world.  The  fame  of 
her  great  writers  filled  Europe.  No  other  country  could 
produce  a  tragic  poet  equal  to  Racine,  a  comic  poet  equal  to 
Moliere,  a  trifler  so  agreeable  as  La  Fontaine,  a  rhetorician  so 
skilful  as  Bossuet.  The  literacy  glory  of  Italy  and  of  Spain 
had  set ;  that  of  Germany  had  not  yet  dawned.  The  genius, 
therefore,  of  the  eminent  men  who  adorned  Paris  shone  forth 
with  a  splendour  which  was  set  off  to  full  advantage  by  con- 
trast. France,  indeed,  had  at  that  timQ  an  empire  over  mankind, 
such  as  even  the  Roman  Republic  never  attained.  For,  when 
Rome  was  politically  dominant,  she  was  in  arts  and  letters  the 
humble  pupil  of  Greece.  France  had,  over  the  surrounding 
countries,  at  once  the  ascendency  which  Rome  had  over  Greece, 
and  the  ascendency  which  Greece  had  over  Rome.  French 
was  fast  becoming  the  universal  language,  the  language  of 
fashionable  society,  the  language  of  diplomacy.  At  several 
courts  princes  and  nobles  spoke  it  more  accurately  and  politely 
than  their  mother  tongue.     In  our  island  there  was  less  of  this 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  361 

servility  than  on  the  Continent.  Neither  our  good  nor  our  bad 
qualities  were  those  of  imitators.  Yet  even  here  homage  was 
paid,  awkwardly  indeed  and  sullenly,  to  the  literary  supremacy 
of  our  neighbours.  The  melodious  Tuscan,  so  familiar  to  the 
gallants  and  ladies  of  the  court  of  Elizabeth,  sank  into  contempt 
A  gentleman  who  quoted  Horace  or  Terence  was  considered  in 
good  company  as  a  pomjious  pedant.  But  to  garnish  his  con- 
versation with  scraps  of  French  was  the  best  proof  which  he 
could  give  of  his  parts  and  attainments.*  New  canons  of 
criticism,  new  models  of  style  came  into  fashion.  The  quaint 
ingenuity  which  had  deformed  the  verses  of  Donne,  and  had 
been  a  blemish  on  those  of  Cowley,  disappeared  from  our 
poetry.  Our  prose  became  less  majestic,  less  artfully  involved, 
less  variously  musical  than  that  of  an  earlier  age,  but  more 
lucid,  more  easy,  and  better  fitted  for  controversy  and  narrative. 
In  these  changes  it  is  impossible  not  -to  recognise  the  influence 
of  French  precept  and  of  French  example.  Great  masters  of 
our  language,  in  their  most  dignified  compositions,  affected  to 
use  French  words,  when  English  words,  quite  as  expressive 
and  sonorous,  wore  at  hand  :  f  and  from  France  was  imported 
the  tragedy  in  rhyme,  an  exotic  which,  in  our  soil,  drooped,  and 
speedily  died. 

It  would  have  been  well  if  our  writers  had  also  copied  the 
decorum  which  their  great  French  contemporaries,  with  few 
exceptions,  preserved  ;  for  the  profligacy  of  the  English  plays, 
satires,  songs,  and  novels  of  that  age  is  a  deep  blot  on  our 
national  fame.  The  evil  may  easily  be  traced  to  its  source. 
The  wits  and  the  Puritans  had  never  been  on  friendly  terms. 
There  was  no  sympathy  between  the  two  classes.     They  looked 

*  Butler,  in  a  satire  of  great  asperitj^  says, 

"  For,  though  to  smatter  words  of  Greek 
And  Latin  be  the  rhetorique 
Of  pedants  counted,  and  vainglorious. 
To  smatter  French  is  meritorious." 

t  The  most  offensive  instance  wliicli  I  remember  is  in  a  poem  on  the  corona- 
tion of  Charles  the  Second  by  Dryden,  who  certainly  could  not  plead  poverty  ae 
an  excuse  for  borrowing  words  from  any  foreign  tongue  : — 
"  Hither  in  summer  evenings  you  repair 
Co  taste  the  fraicheur  of  the  cooler  air." 


362  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

on  the  whole  system  of  human  life  from  different  points  and  in 
different  lights.  The  earnest  of  each  was  the  jest  of  the  other. 
The  pleasures  of  each  were  the  torments  of  the  other.  To  the 
stern  precisian  even  the  innocent  sport  of  the  fancy  seemed  a 
crime.  To  light  axid  festive  natures  the  solemnity  of  the  zealous 
brethren  furnished  copious  matter  of  ridicule.  From  the  Re- 
formation to  the  civil  war,  almost  every  writer,  gifted  with  a 
fine  sense  of  the  ludicrous,  had  taken  some  opportunity  of 
assailing  the  straighthaired,  snuffling,  whining  saints,  who 
christened  their  children  out  of  the  Book  of  Nehemiah,  who 
groaned  in  spirit  at  the  sight  of  Jack  in  the  Green,  and  who 
thought  it  impious  to  taste  plum  porridge  on  Christmas  day. 
At  length  a  time  came  when  the  laughers  began  to  look  grave 
in  their  turn.  The  rigid,  ungainly  zealots,  after  having  fur- 
nished much  good  sport  during  two  generations,  rose  up  in 
arms,  conquered,  ruled,  and,  grimly  smiling,  trod  down  under 
their  feet  the  whole  crowd  of  mockers.  The  wounds  inflicted 
by  gay  and  petulant  malice  were  retaliated  with  the  gloomy 
and  implacable  malice  peculiar  to  bigots  who  mistake  their  own 
rancoui'  for  virtue.  The  theatres  were  closed.  The  players 
were  flogged.  The  press  was  put  under  the  guardianship  of 
austere  licensers.  The  Muses  were  banished  from  their  own 
favourite  haunts,  Cambridge  and  Oxford.  Cowley,  Crashaw, 
and  Cleveland  were  ejected  from  their  fellowships.  The  young 
candidate  for  academical  honours  was  no  longer  required  to 
write  Ovidian  epistles  or  Virgilian  pastorals,  but  was  strictly 
interrogated  by  a  synod  of  lowering  Supralapsarians  as  to  the 
day  and  hour  when  he  experienced  the  new  birth.  Such  a 
system  was  of  course  fruitful  of  hypocrites.  Under  sober 
clothing  and  under  visages  composed  to  the  expression  of 
austerity  lay  hid  during  several  years  the  intense  desire  of 
license  and  of  revenge.  At  length  that  desire  was  gratified. 
The  Restoration  emancipated  thousands  of  minds  from  a  yoke 
which  had  become  insupportable.  The  old  fight  recommenced, 
but  with  an  animosity  altogether  new.  .It  was  now  not. a 
sportive  combat,  but  a  war  to  the  death.  The  Roundhead  had 
no  better  quarter  to  expect  from  those  whom  he  had  persecuted 


STATE    OF    EIWJLAND    IN    1685.  363 

than  a  cruel  slavedriver  can  expect  from  insurgent  slaves  still 
bearing  the  marks  of  his  collars  and  his  scourges. 

The  war  between  wit  and  Puritanism  soon  became  a  war 
between  wit  and  morality.  The  hostility  excited  by  a  grotesque 
caricature  of  virtue  did  not  spare  virtue  herself.  Whatever 
the  cautiusf  Roundhead  had  regarded  with  reverence  was  in- 
suited.  Whatever  he  had  proscribed  was  favoured  Because 
he  had  been  scrupulous  about  trifles,  all  scruples  were  treated 
with  derision.  Because  he  had  covered  his  failings  with  the 
mask  of  devotion,  men  v/ere  encouraged  to  obtrude  with  Cynic 
impudence  all  their  most  scandalous  vices  on  the  public  eye. 
Because  he  had  punished  illicit  love  with  barbarous  severity, 
virgin  purity  and  conjugal  fidelity  were  made  a  jest.  To  that 
sanctimonious  jargon  which  was  his  Shibboleth,  was  opposed 
another  jargon  not  less  absurd  and  much  more  odious.  As  he 
never  opened  his  mouth  except  in  scrijotural  phrase,  the  new 
breed  of  wits  and  fine  gentlemen  never  opened  their  mouths 
without  uttering  ribaldry  of  which  a  porter  would  now  be 
ashamed,  and  without  calling  on  their  Maker  to  curse  them, 
sink  them,  confound  them,  blast  them,  and  damn  them. 

It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  our  polite  literature,  when 
it  revived  with  the  revival  of  the  old  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
polity,  should  have  been  profoundly  immoral.  A  few  eminent 
men,  who  belonged  to  an  earlier  and  better  age,  were  exempt 
from  the  general  contagion.  The  verse  of  Waller  still  breathed 
the  sentiments  which  had  animated  a  more  chivalrous  genera- 
tion. Cowley,  distinguished  as  a  loyalist  and  as  a  man  of 
letters,  raised  his  voice  courageously  against  the  immorality 
which  disgraced  both  letters  and  loyalty.  A  mightier  poet, 
tried  at  once  by  pain,  danger,  poverty,  obloquy,  and  blindness, 
meditated,  undisturbed  by  the  obscene  tumult  which  raged  all 
around  him,  a  song  so  sublime  and  so  holy  that  it  would  not 
have  misbecome  the  lips  of  those  ethereal  Virtues  whom  he 
saw,  with  that  inner  eye  which  no  calamity  could  darken,  fling- 
ing down  on  the  jasper  pavement  their  crowns  of  amaranth  and 
gold.  The  vigourous  and  fertile  genius  of  Butler,  if  it  did  not 
altogether  escape  the  prevailing  infection,  took  the  disease  in  a 


364  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

mild  form.  But  these  were  men  whose  minds  had  been  trained 
in  a  world  which  had  passed  away.  They  gave  place  in  no 
long  time  to  a  younger  generation  of  wits ;  and  of  that  genera- 
tion, from  Dryden  down  to  Durfey,  the  common  characteristic 
was  hard-hearted,  shameless,  swa^uerinij  licentiousness,  at  once 
inelegant  and  inhuman.  The  influence  of  these  writers  was 
doubtless  noxious,  yet  less  noxious  than  it  Avould  have  been 
had  they  been  less  dcpr  d.  The  poison  which  they  adminis- 
tered was  so  strong  thai  it  was,  in  no  long  time,  rejected  witlr 
nausea.  None  of  them  understood  the  dancrerous  art  of  asso- 
dating  images  of  unlawful  pleasure  with  all  that  is  endearing 
and  ennobling.  None  of  them  was  aware  that  a  certain  decorum 
is  essential  even  to  volujituousness,  that  drapery  may  be  more 
alluring  than  exposure,  and  that  the  imagination  may  be  far 
mora  powerfully  moved  by  delicate  hints  which  impel  it  to 
exert  itself,  than  by  gross  descriptions  which  it  takes  in  pas- 
sively. 

The  spirit  of  the  Antipuritan  reaction  pervades  almost  the 
whole  polite  literature  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second.  But 
the  very  quintessence  of  that  spirit  will  be  found  in  the  comic 
drama.  The  playhouses,  shut  by  the  meddling  fanatic  in  the  day 
of  his  power,  were  again  crowded.  To  their  old  attractions  new 
and  more  powerful  attractions  had  been  added.  Scenery,  dresses, 
and  decorations,  such  as  would  now  be  thought  mean  or  absurd, 
but  such  as  would  have  been  esteemed  incredibly  magnificent  by 
those  who,  early  in  the  seventeenth  century,  sate  on  the  filthy 
benches  of  the  Hope,  or  under  the  thatched  roof  of  the  Rose, 
dazzled  the  eyes  of  the  multitude.  The  fascination  of  sex  was 
called  in  to  aid  the  fascination  of  art :  and  the  young  spectator 
saw,  with  emotions  unknown  to  the  contemporaries  of  Shakspeare 
and  Johnson,  tender  and  sprightly  heroines  personated  by  lovely 
women.  From  the  day  on  which  the  theatres  were  reopened, 
they  became  seminaries  of  vice  ;  and  the  evil  propagated  itself. 
The  profligacy  of  the  represeni-itions  soon  drove  away  sober 
people.  The  frivolous  and  dissolute  who  remained  required 
every  year  stronger  and  stronger  stimulants.  Thus  the  artists 
corrupted  the  spectators,  and  the  spectators  the  artists,  till  the 


STATE    OP    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  365 

turpitude  of  the  drama  became  such  as  must  astonish  all  who 
are  not  aware  that  extreme  relaxation  is  the  natural  effect  of 
extreme  restraint,  and  that  au  age  of  hypocrisy  is,  in  the  regular 
course  of  things,  followed  by  an  age  of  impudence. 

Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  the  times  than  the  care 
with  which  the  poets  contrived  to  put  all  their  loosest  verses 
into  the  mouths  of  women.  The  compositions  in  which  the 
greatest  license  was  taken  were  the  epilogues.  They  were 
almost  always  recited  by  favourite  actresses  ;  and  nothing 
charmed  the  depraved  audience  so  much  as  to  hear  lines  grossly 
indecent  repeated  by  a  beautiful  girl,  who  was  supposed  to  have 
not  yet  lost  her  innocence.* 

Our  theatre  was  indebted  in  that  age  for  many  plots  and 
cha^'^cters  to  Spain,  to  France,  and  to  the  old  English  masters : 
but  whatever  our  dramatists  touched  they  tainted.  In  their 
imitations  the  houses  of  Calderon's  stately  and  highspirited 
Castilian  gentlemen  became  sties  of  vice,  Shakspeare's  Viola  a 
procnress,  Moliere's  Misanthrope  a  ravisher,  Moliere's  Agnes 
an  adulteress.  Nothing  could  be  so  pure  or  so  heroic  but  that 
it  became  foul  and  ignoble  by  transfusion  through  those  foul  and 
ignoble  minds. 

Such  was  the  state  of  the  drama  ;  and  the  drama  was  the 
department  of  polite  literature  in  which  a  poet  had  the  best 
chance  of  obtaining  a  subsistence  by  his  pen.  The  sale  of  books 
"Vas  so  small  that  a  man  of  the  greatest  name  could  hardly  ex- 
pect more  than  a  pittance  for  the  copyright  of  the  best  perform- 
ance. There  cannot  be  a  stronger  instance  than  the  fate  of 
Dryden's  last  production,  the  Fables.  That  volume  was  pub- 
lished when  he  was  universally  admitted  to  be  the  chief  of  liv- 
ing English  poets.  It  contains  about  twelve  thousand  lines. 
The  versification  is  admirable,  the  narratives  and  descriptions 
full  of  life.  To  this  day  Palamon  and  Arcite,  Cymon  and 
Iphigenia,  Theodore  and  Honoria,  are  the  delight  both  of  critics 
and  of  schoolboys.  The  collection  includes  Alexander's  Feast, 
the  noblest  ode  in  our   language.     For  the  copyright  Dryden 

*  Jeremy  Collier  haa  c«n8ured  this  odious  practice  with  his  usual  force  and 
keenness. 


866  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

received  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  less  than  in  our  days  has 
sometimes  been  paid  for  two  articles  in  a  review.*  Nor  does 
the  bargain  seem  to  have  been  a  hard  one.  For  the  book  went 
off  slowly ;  and  the  second  edition  was  not  required  till  the 
author  had  been  ten  years  in  his  grave.  By  writing  for  the 
theatre  it  was  possible  to  earn  a  much  larger  sum  with  much 
less  trouble.  Southern  made  seven  hundred  pounds  by  one 
play.f  Otway  was  raised  from  beggary  to  temporary  afiluence 
by  the  success  of  his  Don  Carlos. $  Shadwell  cleared  a  hundred 
and  thirty  pounds  by  a  single  representation  of  the  Squire  of 
Alsatia.§  Tlie  consequence  was  that  every  man  who  had  to 
live  by  his  wit  wrote  plays,  whether  he  had  any  internal  voca- 
tion to  write  plays  or  not.  It  was  thus  with  Dryden.  As  a 
satirist  he  has  rivalled  Juvenal.  As  a  didactic  poet  he  perhaps 
might,  with  care  and  meditation,  have  rivalled  Lucretius.  Of 
lyric  {Doets  he  is,  if  not  the  most  sublime,  the  most  brilliant  and 
spiritstirring.  But  nature,  profuse  to  him  of  many  rare  gifts, 
had  withheld  from  him  the  dramatic  faculty.  Nevertheless  all 
the  energies  of  his  best  years  were  wasted  on  dramatic  composi- 
tion. He  had  too  much  judgment  not  to  be  aware  that  in  the 
power  of  exhibiting  character  by  means  of  dialogue  he  was 
deficient.  That  deficiency  he  did  his  best  to  conceal,  sometimes 
by  surprising  and  amusing  incidents,  sometimes  by  stately  decla- 
mation, sometimes  by  harmonious  numbers,  sometimes  by 
ribaldry  but  too  well  suited  to  the  taste  of  a  profane  and  licen- 
tious pit.  Yet  he  never  obtained  any  theatrical  success  equal  to 
that  which  rewarded  the  exertions  of  some  men  far  inferior  to 
him  in  general  powers.  He  thought  himself  fortunate  if  he 
cleared  a  hundred  guineas  by  a  play ;  a  scanty  remuneration, 
yet  apparently  larger  than  he  could  have  earned  in  any  other 
way  by  the  same  quantity  of  labour.  || 

The  recompense  which  the  wits  of  that  age  could  obtain 
from  the  public  was  so  small,  that  they  were  under  the  necessity 

*  The  contrast  will  be  found  in  Sir  Walter  Scott's  edition  of  Dryden. 
t  See  the  Life  of  Southern,  by  Shiels. 
t  See  Rochester's  Trial  of  the  Poets. 
§  Some  Account  of  the  English  Stage. 
1  Life  of  Southern,  by  Shiels- 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  367 

of  eking  out  their  incomes  by  levying  contributions  on  the  great. 
Every  rich  and  goodnatured  lord  was  pestered  by  authors  with  a 
mendicancy  so  importunate,  and  a  flattery  so  abject,  as  may  in 
our  time  seem  incredible.  The  patron  to  whom  a  work  was 
inscribed  was  expected  to  reward  the  writer  with  a  purse  of 
gokl.  The  fee  paid  for  the  dedication  of  a  book  was  often  much 
larger  than  the  sum  which  any  publisher  would  give  for  the 
copyright.  Books  were  therefore  frequently  printed  merely 
that  they  might  be  dedicated.  This  traiEc  in  praise  produced 
the  effect  which  might  have  been  expected.  Adulation  pushed 
to  the  verge,  sometimes  of  nonsense,  and  sometimes  of  impiety, 
was  not  thought  to  disgrace  a  poet.  Independence,  veracity, 
selfrespect,  were  things  not  required  by  the  world  from  him. 
In  truth,  he  was  in  morals  something  between  a  pandar  and  » 
beggar. 

To  the  other  vices  which  degraded  the  literary  character 
was  added,  towards  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second, 
the  most  savage  intemperance  of  party  spirit.  The  wits,  as  a 
class,  had  been  impelled  by  their  old  hatred  of  Puritanism  to 
take  the  side  of  the  court,  and  had  been  found  useful  allies. 
Dryden,  in  particular,  had  done  good  service  to  the  government. 
His  Absalom  and  Achitophel,  the  greatest  satire  of  modern  times 
had  amazed  the  town,  had  made  its  wav  with  unprecedented 
rapidity  even  into  rural  districts,  and  had,  wherever  it  appeared 
bitterly  annoyed  the  Exclusionists,  and  raised  the  courage  of 
the  Tories.  But  we  must  not,  in  the  admiration  which  we 
naturally  feel  for  noble  diction  and  versification,  forget  the 
great  distinctions  of  good  and  evil.  The  spirit  by  which  Dry- 
den and  several  of  his  compeers  were  at  this  time  animated 
against  the  Whigs  deserves  to  be  called  fiendish.  The  servile 
Judges  and  Sheriffs  of  those  evil  days  could  not  shed  blood  as 
fast  as  the  poets  cried  out  for  it.  Calls  for  more  victims,  hide- 
ous jests  on  hanging,  bitter  taunts  on  those  who,  having  stood 
by  the  King  in  the  hour  of  danger,  now  advised  him  to  deal 
mercifully  and  generously  by  his  vanquished  enemies,  were 
publicly  recited  on  the  stage,  and,  that  nothing  might  be  want- 
Vig  to  the  guilt  and   the   shame,  were  recited  by  women,  who, 


Sc^  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

liaving  loug   been    taught  to  discard  all  modesty,    were    now 
taught  to  discard  -ill  compassion.* 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that,  while  the  lighter  literature  of 
England  was  thus  becoming  a  nuisance  fvnd  a  national  disgrace, 
the  Enijlibh  cenius  was  eilectniij  in  sci<jnce  a  revolution  which 
will,  to  the  end  of  time,  be  reckoned  among  the  highest  achieve- 
ments of  the  human  intellect.  Bacon  had  sown  the  wood  seed  in  a 
sluggish  soil  and  an  ungenial  season.  He  had  not  expected  an 
early  crop,  and  in  his  last  testament  had  solemnly  bequeathed 
his  fame  to  the  next  age.  During  -a.  whole  generation  his  phi- 
losophy bad,  amidst  tumults,  wars,  and  proscriptions,  been  slowly 
ripening  in  a  few  well  constituted  minds.  While  factions  were 
struggling  for  dominion  over  each  other,  a  small  body  of  sages 
had  turned  away  with  benevolent  disdain  from  the  conflict,  and 
had  devoted  themselves  to  the  nobler  work  of  extending  the 
dominion  of  man  over  matter.  As  soon  as  tranquillity  was 
restored,  these  teachers  easily  found  attentive  audience.  For 
the  discipline  through  which  the  nation  had  passed  had  brought 
the  public  mind  to  a  temper  well  fitted  for  the  reception  of  the 
Verulamian  doctrine.  The  civil  troubles  had  stimulated  the 
faculties  of  the  educated  classes,  and  had  called  forth  a  restless 
activity  and  an  insatiable  curiosity,  such  as  had  not  before  been 
known  among  us.  Yet  the  effect  of  those  troubles  was  that 
schemes  of  political  and  religious  reform  were  generally  regarded 
with  suspicion  and  contempt.  During  twenty  years  the  chief 
employment  of  busy  and  ingenious  men  had  been  to  frame  con- 
stitutions with  first  magistrates,  without  first  magistrates,  with 
hereditary  senates,  with  senates  appointed  by  lot,  with  annual 
senates,  with  perpetual  senates.  In  these  plans  nothing  was 
omitted.  All  the  detail,  all  the  nomenclature,  all  the  ceremonial  of 
the  imaginary  government  was  fully  set  forth,  Polemarchs  and 
Phylarchs,  Tribes  and  Galaxies,  the  Lord  Archon  and  the  Lord 
Strategus.  "Which  ballot  boxes  were  to  be  green  and  which  red, 
which  balls  were  to  be  of  gold  and  which  of  silver,  which  magis- 

*  If  any  reader  thinks  my  expressions  too  severe,  I  would  advise  him  to  read 
r'l-yden's  Kpilogue  to  the  Duke  of  Guise,  and  to  observe  that  it  was  spoken  by  a 
woman. 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  369 

trates  were  to  wear  hats  and  which  black  velvet  caps  with  peaks, 
liow  the  mace  was  to  be  carried  and  when  the  heralds  were  to 
uncover,  these, and  a  hundred  more  such  trifles,  were  gravely  consi- 
dered and  arranged  by  men  of  no  common  capacity  and  learning.* 
But  the  time  for  these  visions  had  gone  by  ;  and,  if  any  stead- 
fast republican  still  continued  to  amuse  himself  with  them,  fear 
of  public  derision  and  of  a  criminal  information  generally  induced 
him  to  keep  his  fancies  to  himself.  It  was  now  unpopular  and 
unsafe  to  mutter  a  word  against  the  fundamental  laws  of  the 
monarchy  :  but  daring  and  ingenious  men  might  indemnify  them- 
selves by  treating  with  disdain  what  had  lately  been  considered 
as  the  fundamental  laws  of  nature.  The  torrent  which  had 
been  dammed  up  in  one  channel  rushed  violently  into  another. 
The  revolutionary  spirit,  ceasing  to  operate  in  politics,  began  to 
exert  itself  with  unprecedented  vigour  and  hardihood  in  every 
department  of  physics.  The  year  1660,  the  era  of  the  restora- 
tion of  the  old  constitution,  is  also  the  era  from  which  dates  the 
ascendency  of  the  new  philosophy.  In  that  year  the  Royal 
'  Society,  destined  to  be  a  chief  agent  in  a  long  series  of  glorious 
and  salutary  reforms,  began  to  exist.f  In  a  few  months  experi- 
mental science  became  all  the  mode.  The  transfusion  of  blood, 
the  ponderation  of  air,  the  fixation  of  mercury,  succeeded  to 
that  place  in  the  public  mind  which  -had  been  lately  occupied 
by  the  controversies  of  the  Rota.  Dreams  of  perfect  ferms  of 
government  made  way  for  dreams  of  wings  with  which  men 
were  to  fly  from  the  Tower  to  the  Abbey,  and  of  doublekeeled 
ships  which  were  never  to  founder  in  the  fiercest  storm.  All 
classes  were  hurried  along  by  the  prevailing  sentiment.  Cava- 
lier and  Roundhead,  Churchman  and  Puritan,  were  for  once 
allied.  Divines,  jurists,  statesmen,  nobles,  princes,  swelled  the 
triumph  of  the  Baconian  philosophy.  Poets  sang  with  emulous 
fervour  the  approach  of  the  golden  age.  Cowley,  in  lines 
weighty  with  thought  and  resplendent  with  wit,  urged  the  chosen 
seed  to  take  possession  of  the  promised  land  flowing  with  milk 
and  honey,  that  land  which  their  great  d^iliverer  and  lawgiver 

*  See  pai-ticularly  Harrington's  Oceana, 
t  See  Sprat's  History  of  the  Royal  Society. 


370  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

had  seen,  as  from  the  summit  of  Pisgah,  hut  had  not  heen  per^ 
mitted  to  enter.*  Dryden,  with  more  zeal  than  knowledge,  joined 
voice  to  the  general  acclamation  to  enter,  and  foretold  things 
which  neither  he  nor  anybody  else  understood.  The  Royal 
Society,  he  predicted,  would  soon  lead  us  to  the  extreme  verge  of 
the  globe,  and  there  delight  us  with  a  better  view  of  the  moon,  f 
Two  able  and  aspiring  prelates,  "Ward,  Bishop  of  Salisbury, 
and  Wilkins,  Bishop  of  Chester,  were  conspicuous  among  the 
leaders  of  the  movement.  Its  history  was  eloquently  written 
by  a  younger  divine,  who  was  rising  to  high  distinction  in  his 
profession,  Thomas  Sprat,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Rochester. 
Both  Chief  Justice  Hale  and  Lord  Keeper  Guildford  stole  some 
hours  from  the  business  of  their  courts  to  write  on  hydrostatics. 
Indeed  it  was  under  the  immediate  direction  of  Guildford  that 
the  first  barometers  ever  exposed  to  sale  in  London  were  con- 
structed.$  Chemistry  divided,  for  a  time,  with  wine  and  love, 
with  the  stage  and  the  gaming  table,  with  the  intrigues  of  a  cour- 
tier and  the  intrigues  of  a  demagogue,  the  attention  of  the  fickle 
Buckingham.  Rupert  has  the  credit  of  having  invented  mezzotin- 
to  ;  from  him  is  named  that  curious  bubbleof  glass  which  haslong 
amused  children  and  puzzled  philosophers.  Charles  himself  had 
a  laboratory  at  Whitehall,  and  was  far  more  active  and  attentive 
there  than  at  the  council  board.  It  was  almost  necessary  to  the 
character  of  a  fine  gentleman  to  have  something  to  say  about  air 
pumps  and  telescopes  ;  and  even  fine  ladies,  now  and  then, 
thought  it  becoming  to  affect  a  taste  for  science,  went  in  coaches 
And  six  to  visit  the  Gresham  curiosities,  and  broke  forth  into 
cries  of  delight  at  finding  that  a  magnet  really  attracted  a  needle, 
and  that  a  microscope  really  made  a  fly  look  as  large  as  a  spar- 
row. § 

In  this,  as  in  every  great  stir  of  the  human  mind,  there  was 

*  Cowley's  Ode  to  the  Royal  Society. 

t  '  Then  we  upon  the  globe's  last  yergc  shall  go, 

And  view  the  oceon  leaning  on  the  sky  ; 

From  thence  our  rolling  neighbours  we  shall  know, 

And  on  the  lunar  world  securely  pry.' 

Annua  Mirabilis,  164 
$  North's  Life  of  Guildford. 
{  Pepye's  Diary,  May  30, 1667. 


irXTK    OP    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  371 

doubtless  something  which  miglit  well  move  a  smile.  It  is  the 
universal  law  that  whatever  pursuit,  whatever  doctrine,  becomes 
fashionable,  shall  lose  a  portion  of  that  dignity  which  it  had  pos- 
sessed while  it  was  confined  to  a  small  but  earnest  minority,  and 
was  loved  for  its  own  sake  alone.  It  is  true  that  the  follies  of 
some  persons  who,  without  any  real  aptitude  for  science,  pro- 
fessed a  passion  for  it,  furnished  matter  of  contemptuous  mirth  to 
a  few  malignant  satirists  who  belonged  to  the  preceding  gener- 
ation, and  were  not  disposed  to  unlearn  the  lore  of  their  youth.* 
But  it  is  not  less  true  that  the  great  work  of  interpreting  nature 
was  performed  by  the  English  of  that  age  as  it  had  never  before 
been  performed  in  any  age  by  any  nation.  The  spirit  of  Fran- 
cis Bacon  was  abroad,  a  spirit  admirably  compounded  of  audacity 
and  sobriety.  There  was  a  strong  persuasion  that  the  whole 
world  was  full  of  secrets  of  high  moment  to  the  happiness  of 
man,  and  that  man  had,  by  his  Maker,  been  entrusted  with  the 
key  which,  rightly  used,  would  give  access  to  them.  There  was 
at  the  same  time  a  conviction  that  in  physics  it  was  impossible 
to  arrive  at  the  knowledge  of  general  laws  except  by  the  care- 
ful observation  of  particular  facts.  Deeply  impressed  with  these 
great  truths,  the  professors  of  the  new  philosophy  applied  them- 
selves to  their  task,  and,  before  a  quarter  of  a  century  had 
expired,  they  had  given  ample  earnest  of  what  has  since  been 
achieved.  Already  a  reform  of  agriculture  had  been  com- 
menced. 'Kew  vegetables  were  cultivated.  New  implements  of 
husbandry  were  employed.  New  manures  were  applied  to  the 
soil.f  Evelyn  had,  under  the  formal  sanction  of  the  Royal 
Society,  given  instruction  to  his  countrymen  in  planting. 
Temple,  in  his  intervals  of  leisure,  had  tried  many  experiments 
in  horticulture,  and  had  proved  that  many  delicate  fruits,  the 
natives  of  more  favoured  climates,  might,  with  the  helj)  of  art, 
be  grown  on  English  ground.     Medicine,  which  in  France  was 

*  Butler  was,  I  think,  the  only  man  of  real  genius  who,  between  the  Restora,- 
tion  and  the  Revolution  showed  a  bitter  enmity  to  the  new  philosophy,  as  it  was 
then  called.    See  the  Satire  on  the  Royal  Society,  and  the  Elephant  in  the  Moon. 

t  The  eagerness  with  wluch  the  agriculturists  of  that  age  tried  experiments 
and  introduced  improvements  is  well  described  by  Aubrey.  See  the  Natural 
History  of  Wiltshire,  1685. 


372  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

still  in  abject  bondage,  and  afforded  an  inexhaustible  subject  of 
just  ridicule  to  Moliere,  had  in  England  become  an  experi- 
mental and  progressive  science,  and  every  day  made  some  new 
advance  in  defiance  of  Hippocrates  and  Galen.  The  attention 
of  speculative  men  had  been,  for  the  first  time,  directed  to  the 
important  subject  of  sanitary  police.  The  great  plague  of  1665 
induced  them  to  consider  with  care  the  defective  architecture, 
draining,  and  ventilation  of  the  capital.  The  great  fire  of  1666 
afforded  an  opportunity  for  effecting  extensive  improvements. 
The  whole  matter  was  diligently  examined  by  the  Royal  Society  ; 
and  to  the  suggestions  of  that  body  must  be  partly  attributed 
the  changes  which,  though  far  short  of  what  the  public  welfare 
required,  yet  made  a  wide  difference  between  the  new  and  the 
old  London,  and  probably  put  a  final  close  to  the  ravages  of 
pestilence  in  our  country.*  At  the  same  time  one  of  the  found- 
ers of  the  Society,  Sir  William  Petty,  created  the  science  of 
political  arithmetic,  the  humble  but  indispensable  handmaid  of 
political  philosophy.  No  kingdom  of  nature  was  left  unexplored. 
To  that  period  belong  the  chemical  discoveries  of  Boyle,  and 
the  earliest  botanical  researches  of  Sloane.  It  was  then  that 
Ray  made  a  new  classification  of  birds  and  fishes,  and  that  the 
attention  of  Woodward  was  first  drawn  towards  fossils  and  shells. 
One  after  another  phantoms  which  haunted  the  world  through 
ages  of  darkness  fled  before  the  light.  Astrology  and  alchymy 
became  jests.  Soon  there  was  scarcely  a  county  in  which  some 
of  the  old  Quorum  did  not  smile  contemptuously  when  an  old 
woman  was  brouirht  before  them  for  ridin<y  on  broomsticks  or 
giving  cattle  the  murrain.  But  it  was  in  those  noblest  and  most 
arduous  departments  of  knowledge  in  which  induction  and 
mathematical  demonstration  cooperate  for  the  discovery  of  truth, 
that  the  English  genius  won  in  that  age  the  most  memorable 
triumphs.  John  Wallis  placed  the  whole  system  of  statics  on  a 
new  foundation.  Edmund  Plalley  investigated  the  properties  of 
the  atmosphere,  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  sea,  the  laws  of  mag- 
netism, and  the  course  of  the  comets  ;  nor  did  he  shrink  from 
toil,  peril  and  exile  in  the  cause  of  science.  While  he,  on  the 
*  Sprat's  History  of  the  Royal  Society, 


STATE    OF   ENDLAND    IN    1685.  373 

rock  of  Saint  Helena,  mai)ped  the  constellations  of  the  southern 
hemisphere,  our  national  observatory  was  rising  at  Greenwich : 
and  John  Flamsteed,  the  first  Astronomer  Royal,  was  commenc- 
ing that  long  series  of  observations  which  is  never  mentioned 
without  respect  and  gratitude  in  any  part  of  the  globe.  But  the 
glory  of  these  men,  eminent  as  they  were,  is  cast  into  the  shade 
by  the  transcendent  lustre  of  one  immortal  name.  In  Isaac 
Newton  two  kinds  of  intellectual  power,  which  have  little  in 
common,  and  which  are  not  often  found  together  in  a  very  high 
degree  of  vigour,  but  which  nevertheless  are  equally  necessary 
in  the  most  sublime  departments  of  physics,  were  united  as  they 
have  never  been  united  before  or  since.  There  may  have  been 
minds  as  happily  constituted  as  his  for  the  cultivation  of  pure 
mathematical  science  :  there  may  have  been  minds  as  happily 
constituted  for  the  cultivation  of  science  purely  experimental  ; 
but  in  no  other  mind  have  the  demonstrative  faculty  and  the 
inductive  faculty  coexisted  in  such  supreme  excellence  and  per 
feet  harmony.  Perhaps  in  the  days  of  Scotists  and  Thomists  even 
his  intellect  might  have  run  to  waste,  as  many  .intellects  ran 
to  waste  which  were  inferior  only  to  his.  Happily  the  spirit  of 
the  age  on  which  his  lot  was  cast,  gave  the  right  direction 
to  his  mind ;  and  his  mind  reacted  with  tenfold  force  on  the 
spirit  of  the  age.  In  the  year  1685  his  fame,  though 
splendid,  was  only  dawning ;  but  his  genius  was  in  the  meridian. 
His  great  work,  that  work  which  effected  a  revolution  in  the 
most  important  provinces  of  natural  philosophy,  had  been  com- 
pleted, but  was  not  yet  published,  and  was- just  about  to  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  consideration  of  the  Royal  Society. 

It  is  not  very  easy  to  explain  why  the  nation  which  was  so 
far  before  its  neighbours  in  science  should  in  art  have  been  far 
behind  them.  Yet  such  was  the  fact.  It  is  true  that  in  archi- 
tecture, an  art  which  is  half  a  science,  an  art  in  which  none  but 
a  geometrician  can  excel,  an  art  which  has  no  standard  of  grace 
but  what  is  directly  or  indirectly  dependent  on  utility,  an  art  of 
which  the  creations  derive  a  part,  at  least,  of  their  majesty  from 
mere  bulk,  our  country  could  boast  of  one  truly  great  man, 
Christopher  Wren  •  and  the   fire  which  laid   London  in  ruins 


374  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

had  given  him  an  ojjportunity,  unprecedented  in  modern  history, 
of  displaying  his  powers.  The  austere  beauty  of  the  Athenian 
portico,  the  gloomy  sublimity  of  the  Gothic  arcade,  he  was  like 
almost  all  his  contemporaries,  incapable  of  emulating,  and  per- 
haps incapable  of  appreciating ;  but  no  man  born  on  our  side  of 
the  Alps,  has  imitated  with  so  much  success  the  magnificence  of 
the  palacelike  churches  of  Italy.  Even  the  superb  Lewis  has 
left  to  posterity  no  work  which  can  bear  a  comparison  with 
Saint  Paul's.  But  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the 
Second  there  was  not  a  single  English  painter  or  statuary  whose 
name  is  now  remembered.  This  sterility  is  somewhat  myste- 
rious ;  for  painters  and  statuaries  were  by  no  means  a  despised 
or  an  ill  paid  class.  Their  social  position  was  at  least  as  high  as 
at  present.  Their  gains,  when  compared  with  the  wealth  of  the 
nation  and  with  the  remuneration  of  other  descriptions  of  intel- 
lectual labour,  were  even  larger  than  at  present.  Indeed  the 
munificent  patronage  which  was  extended  to  artists  drew  them 
to  our  shores  in  multitudes.  Lely.  who  has  preserved  to  us  the 
rich  curls,  the  full  lips,  and  the  languishing  eyes  of  the  frail 
beauties  celebrated  by  Hamilton,  was  a  Westphalian.  He  had 
died  in  1680,  having  long  lived  splendidly,  having  received  the 
honour  of  knighthood,  and  having  accumulated  a  good  estate  out 
of  the  fruits  of  his  skill.  His  noble  collection  of  drawings  and 
pictures  was,  after  his  decease,  exhibited  by  the  royal  permis- 
sion in  the  Banqueting  House  at  Whitehall,  and  was  sold  by 
auction  for  the  almost  incredible  sum  of  twenty-six  thousand 
pounds,  a  sum  which  bore  a  greater  proportion  to  the  fortunes 
of  the  rich  men  of  that  day  than  a  hundred  thousand  pounds 
would  bear  to  the  fortunes  of  the  rich  men  of  our  time.*  Lely. 
was  succeeded  by  his  countryman  Godfrey  Kneller,  who  was 
made  first  a  knight  and  then  a  baronet,  and  who,  after  keeping 
up  a  sumptuous  establishment,  and  after  losing  much  money  by 
unlucky  speculations,  was  still  able  to  bequeath  a  large  fortune 
to  his  family.  The  two  Vandeveldes,  natives  of  Holland,  had 
been  tempted  by  English  liberality  to  settle  here,  and  had  pro- 

•  Walpole's  Anecdotes  of  Painting ;  Loudon  Gazette,  May  31,  1683 ;  North's 
life  of  Guildford. 


STATE    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  d75 

duced  for  the  King  and  his  nobles  some  of  the  finest  sea  pieces 
in  the  world.  Another  Dutchman,  Simon  Varelst,  painted 
glorious  sunflowers  and  tulips  for  prices  such  as  had  never  be- 
fore been  known.  Verrio,  a  Neapolitan,  covered  ceilings  and 
staircases  with  Gorgons  and  IMuses,  Njmphs  and  Satyrs,  Vir- 
tues and  Vices,  Gods  quafliug  nectar,  and  laurelled  princes 
riding  in  triumph.  The  income  which  he  derived  from  his 
performances  enabled  him  to  keep  one  of  the  most  expensive 
tables  in  England.  For  his  pieces  at  "Windsor  alone  he  received 
seven  thousand  pounds,  a  sum  then  sufficient  to  make  a  gentle- 
man of  moderate  wishes  perfectly  easy  for  life,  a  sum  greatly 
exceeding  all  that  Dryden,  during  a  literary  life  of  forty  years, 
obtained  from  the  booksellers.*  Verrio's  assistant  and  suc- 
cessor, Lewis  Laguerre,  came  from  France.  The  two  most 
celebrated  sculptors  of  that  day  were  also  foreigners.  Gibber, 
whose  pathetic  emblems  of  Fury  and  Melancholy  still  adorn 
Bedlam,  was  a  Dane.  Gibbons,  to  whose  graceful  fancy  and 
delicate  touch  many  of  our  palaces,  colleges,  and  churches  owe 
their  finest  decorations,  was  a  Dutchman.  Even  the  designs 
for  the  coin  were  made  by  French  artists.  Indeed,  it  was  not 
till  the  reign  of  George  the  Second  that  our  country  could  glory 
in  a  great  painter ;  and  George  the  Third  was  on  the  throne 
before  she  had  reason  to  be  proud  of  any  of  her  sculptors. 

It  is  time  that  this  description  of  the  England  which  Charles 
the  Second  governed  should  draw  to  a  close.  Yet  one  subject 
of  the  highest  moment  still  remains  untouched.  Nothing  has 
yet  been  said  of  the  great  body  of  the  people,  of  those  who  held 
the  ploughs,  who  tended  the  oxen,  who  toiled  at  the  looms  of 
Norwich,  and  squared  the  Portland  stone  for  Saint  Paul's. 
Nor  can  very  much  be  said.  The  most  numerous  class  is  pre- 
cisely the  class  respecting  which  we  have  the  most  meagre 
information.  In  those  times  philanthropists  did  not  yet  regard 
it  as  a  sacred  duty,  nor  had  demagogues  yet  found  it  a  lucrative 
trade,  to  talk  and  write  about  the  distress  of  the  labourer.  His- 
tory was  too  much  occupied  with  courts  and  camps  to  spare  a 

»  The  great  prices  paid  to  Varelst  and  Verrio  are  mentioned  in  Walpole's 
AnecvioteB  of  Padntingi 


4V tt  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

line  for  the  hut  of  the  peasant  or  the  garret  of  the  mechanic, 
The  press  now  often  sends  forth  in  a  day  a  greater  quantity  of 
discussion  and  declamation  about  tlie  condition  of  the  workmg 
man  than  was  published  during  the  twenty-eight  years  which 
elapsed  between  the  Restoration  and  the  Revolution.  But  it 
would  be  a  great  error  to  infer  from  the  increase  of  complamt 
that  there  has  been  any  increase  of  misery. 

The  great  criterion  of  the  state  of  the  common  people  is  the 
amount  of  their  wages  ;  and  as  four-fifths  of  the  common  people 
were,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  employed  in  agriculture,  it  is 
especially  important  to  ascertain  what  were  then  the  wages  of 
agricultural  industry.  On  this  subject  we  have  the  means  of 
arriving  at  conclusions  sufficiently  exact  for  our  purpose. 

Sir  William  Petty,  whose  mere  assertion  carries  great  weight, 
informs  us  that  a  labourer  was  by  no  means  in  the  lowest  state 
who  received  for  a  day's  work  fourpence  with  food,  or  eight- 
pence  without  food.  Four  shillings  a  week  therefore  were, 
according  to  Petty's  calculation,  fair  agricultural  wages.* 

That  this  calculation  wag  Dot  remote  from  the  truth  we  havo 
abundant  proof.  About  the  beginning  of  the  year  1685  the 
justices  of  Warwickshire,  in  the  exercise  of  a  power  entrusted 
to  them  hj  aa  Act  of  Elizabeth,  fixed,  at  their  quarter  sessions , 
a  scale  of  wages  for  the  county,  and  notified  that  every  employer 
who  gave  more  than  the  authorised  sum,  and  every  working 
man  who  received  more,  would  be  liable  to  punishment.  Tho 
wages  of  the  common  agricultural  labourer,  from  March  to 
September,  were  fixed  at  the  precise  amount  mentioned  by 
Petty,  namely  four  shillings  a  week  without  food.  From  Sep- 
tember to  March  the  wages  were  to  ba  only  three  and  sixpence 
a  week.f 

But  in  that  age,  as  in  ours,  tho  earnings  of  the  peasant  were 
very  different  in  different  parts  of  the  kingdom.  The  wages  of 
Warwickshire  were  probably  about  the  average,  and  those  of 
the  counties  near  the  Scottish  border  below  it :  but  there  were 
more  favoured  districts.  In  the  same  year,  1 685,  a  gentleman 
of  Devonshire,  named  Richard  Dunning,  published  a  small  tract, 
•  Petty'*  Political  Arithmetic.       f  Stat  5  Eliz.  c.  4  J  Archseologia,  vol.  rf. 


BTATl.:    OF    ENGLAND    IN    1685.  377 

Id  which  he  described  the  condition  of  the  poor  of  that  count}'. 
That  he  understood  his  subject  well  it  is  impossible  to  doubt ; 
for  a  few  months  later  his  work  was  reprinted,  and  was,  by  the 
magistrates  assembled  in  quarter  sessions  at  Exeter,  strongly 
recommended  to  the  attention  of  all  parochial  ofRcers.  Accord- 
ing to  him,  the  wages  of  the  Devonshire  peasant  were,  without 
food,  about  five  shillings  a  week.* 

Still  better  was  the  condition  of  the  labourer  in  the  neish- 
bourhood  of  Bury  Saint  Edmund's.  The  magistrates  of  Suffolk 
met  there  hi  the  spring  of  1682  to  fix  a  rate  of  wages,  and 
resolved  that,  where  the  labourer  was  not  boarded,  he  should 
have  five  shillings  a  week  in  winter,  and  six  in  summer.f 

In  1661  the  justices  at  Chelmsford  had  fixed  the  wages  of 
the  Essex  labourer,  who  was  not  boarded,  at  six  shillings  in 
winter  and  seven  in  summer.  This  seems  to  have  been  the 
highest  remuneration  given  in  the  kingdom  for  agricultural 
labour  between  the  Restoration  and  the  Revolution  ;  and  it 
is  to  be  observed  that,  in  the  year  in  which  this  order  was  made, 
the  necessaries  of  life  were  immoderately  dear.  AVheat  was  at 
seventy  shillings  the  quarter,  which  would  even  now  be  consid- 
ered as  almost  a  famine  price.$ 

These  facts  are   in  2:)erfect  accordance   with    another  fact 

which  seems  to  deserve  consideration.       It  is  evident  that,  in 

a  country  where  no  man  can  be  compelled  to  become  a  soldier, 

the  ranks   of  an  army  cannot  be  filled  if  the  government  offers 

much  less  than  the  wages  of  common  rustic  labour.     At  present 

the  pay  and  beer  money  of  a  private  in  a  regiment  of  the  line 

amount  to  seven  shillings  and  sevenpence  a  week.   This  stipend, 

coupled  with  the  hope  of  a  pension,  does  not  attract  the  English 

youth  in  sufficient  numbers;  and  it  is  found  necessary  to  supjjly 

the  deficiency  by    enlisting  largely  from    among  the    poorer 

population  of  Munster  and  Connaught.     The  pay  of  the  private 

foot  soldier  in  1685  was  only  four    shillings  and  eightpence 

a  week,  yet  it  is  certain  that  the  government  in  that  year  found 

*  Plain  and  easy  Method  showing  how  the  office  of  Overseer  of  the  Poor  may 
be  manatred,  by  Richard  Dunnine;;  1st  edition,  1685;  2d  edition,  1686. 
t  Cullum's  History  of  Hawsted. 
i  Ruggles  on  the  Poor. 


378  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

no  difficulty  in  obtaining  many  thousands  of  English  recruits 
at  very  short  notice.  The  pay  of  the  private  foot  soldier  in  the 
army  of  the  Commonwealth  had  been  seven  shillings  a  week, 
that  is  to  say,  as  much  as  a  corporal  received  under  Charles  the 
Second  ;  *  and  seven  shillings  a  week  had  been  found  sufficient 
to  fill  the  ranks  with  men  decidedly  superior  to  the  generality 
of  the  people.  On  the  whole,  therefore,  it  seems  reasonable  to 
conclude  that,  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  the  ordinary 
wages  of  the  peasant  did  not  exceed  four  shillings  a  week ;  but 
that,  in  some  pai-ts  of  the  kingdom,  five  shillings,  six  shillings,  and, 
during  the  summer  months,  even  seven  shillings  were  paid.  At 
present  a  district  where  a  labouring  man  earns  only  seven  shillings 
a  week  is  thought  to  be  in  a  state  shocking  to  humanity.  The 
average  is  very  much  higher  ;  -and  in  pi'osperous  counties,  the 
weekly  wages  of  husbandmen  amount  to  twelve,  fourteen,  and 
even  sixteen  shillings.  The  remuneration  of  workmen  employed 
in  manufactures  has  always  been  higher  than  than  that  of  the 
tillers  of  the  soil.  In  the  year  1680,  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Commons  remarked  that  the  high  wages  paid  in  this  countrr 
make  it  impossible  for  our  textures  to  maintain  a  cempetition 
with  the  produce  of  the  Indian  looms.  An  English  mechanic,  he 
said,  instead  of  slaving  like  a  native  of  Bengal  for  a  piece  of  cop- 
per, exacted  a  shilling  a  day.f  Other  evidence  is  extant,  which 
proves  that  a  shilling  a  day  was  the  pay  to  which  the  English 
manufactuer  then  thought  himself  entitled,  but  that  he  was 
ofteu  forced  to  work  for  less.  The  common  people  of  that  age 
were  not  in  the  habit  of  meeting  for  public  discussion,  of 
haranguing,  or  of  petitioning  Parliament.  No  newspaper 
pleaded  their  cause.  It  was  in  rude  rhyme  that  their  love 
and  hatred,  their  exultation  had  their  distress,  found  utter- 
ance. A  great  part  of  their  history  is  to  be  learned  only 
from  their  ballads.  One  of  the  most  remarkable  of  the  popu- 
lar lays  chaunted  about  the  streets  of  Norwich  and  Leeds  in 
the  time  of  Charles   the  Second  and   still  be  read  on  the  orig- 

*  See,  in  Thurloe's  State  Papers,  the  memorandum  of  the  Pi'toh  Deputies, 
dated  August  2-12,  1653. 

t  The  orator  was  Mr.  John  Basset,  member  for  Barngt>ple>  S^e  SbJith'* 
Memoirs  of  Wool,  chapter  Ixviii. 


STATE  OP  ENGLAND  IN  1685.  379 

ual  broadside.  It  is  the  vehement  and  bitter  cry  of  labour 
against  capital.  It  describes  the  good  old  times  when  every 
artisan  employed  in  the  vtfoollen  manufacture  lived  as  well  as 
a  farmer.  But  those  times  were  past.  Sixpence  a  day  was 
now  all  that  could  be  earned  by  hard  labour  at  the  loom.  If 
the  poor  complained  that  they  could  not  live  on  such  a  pit- 
tance, they  were  told  that  they  were  free  to  take  it  or  leave  it. 
For  so  miserable  a  recompense  were  the  producers  of  wealth 
compelled  to  toil,  rising  early  and  lying  down  late,  while  the 
master  clothier,  eating,  sleepmg,  and  idhng,  became  rich  by  their 
exertions.  A  shilling  a  day,  the  poet  declares,  is  what  the 
weaver  would  have  if  justice  were  done.*  We  may  therefore 
conclude  that,  in  the  generation  which  preceded  the  Revolution, 
a  workman  employed  in  the  great  staple  manufacture  of  England 
thought  himself  fairly  paid  if  he  gained  six  shillings  a  week. 

It  may  here  be  noticed  that  the  practice  of  setting  children 
prematurely  to  work,  a  practice  which  the  state,  the  legitimate 
pi'otector  of  those  who  cannot  protect  themselves,  has,  in  our 
time,  wisely  and  humanely  interdicted,  prevailed  m  the  seven- 
teenth century  to  an  extent  which,  when  compared  with  the  ex- 
tent of  the  manufacturing  system,  seems  almost  incredible.  At 
Norwich,  the  chief  seat  of  the  clothing  trade,  a  little  creature 
of  six  years  old  was  thought  fit  for  labour.  Several  writers  of 
that  time,  and  among  them  some  who  were  considered  as  emi- 
nently benevolent,  mention,  with  exultation,  the  fact  that,  in 
that  single  city,  boys  and  girls  of  very  tender  age  created  wealth 

*  This  ballad  is  in  the  British  Museum.  The  precise  year  is  not  given  ;  but 
the  Imprimatur  of  Roger  Lestrange  fixes  the  date  sufficiently  for  my  purpose.  I 
will  quote  some  of  the  lines.  The  master  clothier  is  introduced  speaJcing  ai 
follows  :— 

**  In  former  ages  we  used  to  give, 
S>/  that  our  workfolks  like  farmers  did  live  ; 
But  the  times  are  changed,  we  will  make  them  know. 

"  We  will  make  them  to  work  hard  for  sixpence  a  day, 
Though  a  shilling  they  deserve  if  they  had  their  just  pay  ; 
If  at  all  they  murmur  and  say  'tis  too  small. 
We  bid  them  choose  whether  they'll  work  at  all. 
And  thus  we  ("o  giin  all  our  wealth  and  estate. 
By  many  poor  men  that  work  early  and  late. 
Tiien  hey  for  the  clothing  trade  !  It  goes  on  brave ; 
We  scorn  for  to  toyl  and  moyi,  nor  yet  to  slave. 
Our  workmen  do  work  hard,  but  we  live  at  case, 
We  £0  wh»a  we  wilt,  and  we  come  When  we  plsac«." 


^80  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

exceeding  what  was  necessary  for  their  own  subsistence  by  twelve 
thousand  pounds  a  year.*  The  more  carefully  we  examine  the 
history  of  the  past,  the  more  reason  shall  we  find  to  dissent  from 
those  who  imagine  that  our  age  has  been  fruitful  of  new  social 
evils.  The  truth  is  '  hat  the  evils  are,  with  scarcely  an  exception, 
old.  That  which  is  new  is  the  intelligence  which  discerns  and 
the  humanity  which  remedies  them. 

When  we  pass  from  the  weavers  of  cloth  to  a  different  class 
of  artisans,  our  enquiries  will  still  lead  us  to  nearly  the  same 
conclusions.  During  several  generations,  the  Commissioners  of 
Greenwich  Hospital  have  kept  a  register  of  the  wages  paid  to  dif- 
ferent classes  of  workmen  who  have  been  employed  in  the  repairs 
of  the  building.  From  th.'s  valuable  record  it  appears  that,  in  the 
course  of  a  hundred  and  twenty  years,  the  daily  earnings  of  the 
bricklayer  have  risen  from  half  a  crown  to  four  and  tenpence, 
those  of  the  mason  from  half  a  crown  to  five  and  threepence, 
those  of  the  carpenter  from  half  acrown  to  five  and  fivepence,  and 
those  of  the  plumber  from  three  shillings  to  five  and  sixpence. 

It  seems  clear,  therefore,  that  the  wages  of  labour,  estima- 
ted in  money,  were,  in  1685,  not  more  than  half  of  what  they 
now  are  ;  and  there  were  few  articles  important  to  the  working 
man  of  which  the  price  was  not,  in  1685,  more  than  half  of  what 
it  now  is.  Beer  was  undoubtedly  much  cheaper  in  that  age  than 
at  present.  Meat  was  also  cheaper,  but  was  still  so  dear  that 
hundi'eds  of  thousands  of  families  scarcely  knew  the  taste  of  it.  f 
In  the  cost  of  wheat  there  has  been  very  little  change.  The  aver- 
age price  of  the  quarter,  during  the  last  twelve  years  o  Charles 
the  Second,  was  fifty  shillings.  Bread,  therefore,  such  as  is  now 
given  to  the  inmates  of  a  workhouse,  was  then  soldom  seen,  even 
on  the  trencher  of  a  yeoman  or  of  a  shopkeeper.  The  great  ma- 
lority  of  the  nation  lived  almost  entirely  on   ye,  barley,  and  oats. 

The  produce  of  tropical  countries,  the  produce  of  the  mines, 

*  Cliamberlayne's  State  of  England  ;  Petty's  Political  Arithmetic,  cliapter 
viii. ;  Dmming's  Plain  and  Easy  Method  ;  Finnin's  Proposition  for  the  Employing 
of  the  Poor.  It  ought  to  be  observed  that  Firmin  was  an  eminent  philanthropist. 

t  King  in  his  Natural  and  Political  Conclusions  roughly  estimated  the  common 
people  of  England  at  880,000  families.  Of  these  f  ^miilies  440,000,  according  to  him, 
ate  animal  food  twice  a  week.  The  remaining  440,000,  ate  it  not  at  all,  or  at  most 
not  oftener  than  once  a  week. 


STATE  OF  ENGLAND  IN  1685.  381 

the  produce  of  machinery,  was  positively  dearer  than  at  present^ 
Among  the  commodities  for  which  the  labourer  would  have  had 
to  pay  higher  in  1685  than  his  posterity  now  pay  were  sugar, 
salt,  coals,  candles,  soap,  shoes,  stockings,  and  generally  all 
articles  of  clothing  and  all  articles  of  bedding.  It  may  be 
added,  that  the  old  coats  and  blankets  would  have  been,  not 
only  more  costly,  but  less  serviceable  than  the  modern  fabrics. 

It  must  be  lemembered  that  those  labourers  who  were  able 
to  maintain  themselves  and  their  families  by  means  of  wages 
were  not  the  most  necessitous  members  of  the  community. 
Beneath  them  lay  a  large  class  which  could  not  subsist  without 
some  aid  from  the  parish.  There  can  hardly  be  a  more  impor- 
tant test  of  the  condition  of  the  common  people  than  the  ratio 
jvhich  this  class  bears  to  the  whole  society.  At  present,  the 
men,  women,  and  children  who  receive  relief  appear  from  the 
official  returns  to  be,  in  bad  years,  one  tenth  of  the  inhabitants 
of  England,  and,  in  good  years,  one  thirteenth.  Gregory  King 
estimated  them  in  his  time  at  about  a  fourth  ;  and  this  estimate, 
which  all  our  respect  for  his  authority  will  scarcely  prevent  us 
from  calling  extravagant,  was  pronounced  by  Davenant  emi- 
nently judicious. 

We  are  not  quite  without  the  means  of  forming  an  estimate 
for  ourselves.  The  poor  rate  was  undoubtedly  the  heaviest 
tax  borne  by  our  ancestors  in  those  (h,js.  It  was  computed,  in 
the  reisn  of  Charles  the  Second,  at  near  vseven  hundred  thou- 
sand  pounds  a  year,  much  more  than  .e  produce  either  of  the 
excise  or  of  the  customs,  and  little  l')ss  than  half  the  entire 
revenue  of  the  crown.  The  poor  rate  went  on  increasing  rapidly, 
and  appears  to  have  risen  in  a  short  time  to  between  eight  and 
nine  hundred  thousand  a  year,  that  is  to  say,  to  one  sixth  of 
what  it  now  is.  The  population  was  then  less  than  a  third  of 
what  it  now  is.  The  minimum  of  wages,  estimated  in  money, 
was  half  of  what  it  now  is  ;  and  we  can  therefore  hardly  suppose 
that  the  average  allowance  made  to  a  pauper  can  have  been 
more  than  half  of  what  it  now  is.  It  seems  to  follow  that  the 
proportion  of  the  English  people  which  received  parochial  relief 
then  must  have  been  larger  thtn  the  proportion  which  receives 


^82  nisTOur  of  enc;:..\xd. 

relief  now.  It  is  good  to  speak  on  such  questions  with  dif 
fidence  :  but  it  has  certainly  never  yet  been  proved  that  pau- 
perism was  a  less  heavy  burden  or  a  less  serious  social  evil 
during  the  last  quarter  of  the  seventeenth  century  than  it  is  in 
our  own  time.* 

In  one  respect  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  progress  of  civ- 
ilization has  diminished  the  physical  comforts  of  a  portion  of  the^ 
poorest  cla«s.  It  has  already  been  mentioned  that,  before  the 
Revolution,  many  thousands  of  square  miles,  now  enclosed  and 
cultivated,  were  marsh,  forest,  and  heath.  Of  this  wild  land 
much  was,  by  law,  common,  and  much  of  what  was  not  common 
by  law  was  woilh  so  little  that  the  proprietorc  suffered  it  to  be 
common  in  fact.  In  such  a  tract,  squatters  and  trespassers  were 
tolerated  to  an  extent  now  unknown.  The  peasant  who  dwelf 
there  could,  at  little  or  no  charge,  procure  occasionally  som€ 
palatable  addition  to  his  hard  fare,  and  provide  himself  witb» 
fuel  for  the  winter.  He  kept  a  flock  of  geese  on  what  is  novf 
an  orchard  rich  with  apple  blossoms.  He  snared  wild  fowl  on  the 
fen  which  has  long  since  been  drained  and  divided  into  corn-fields 
and  turnip  fields.  He  cut  turf  among  the  furze  bushes  on  the 
moor  which  is  now  a  meadow  bright  with  clover  and  renowne(? 
for  butter  and  cheese.  The  progress  of  agriculture  and  the  in- 
crease of  population  necessarily  deprived  him  of  these  privileges. 
But  against  this  disadvantas^e  a  long  list  of  advantacres  is  to  be 
set  off.  Of  the  blessings  which  civilisation  and  philosophy  bring 
with  them  a  large  proportion  is  common  to  all  ranks,  and  would, 
if  withdrawn,  be  missed  as  painfully  by  the  labourer  as  by  the 
peer.     The  market-place  which  the  rustic  can  now  reach  with 

*  Fourteenth  Report  of  the  Poor  Law  Commifsioiiers,  Appendix  B.  Ko.  2, 
Appendix  C.  Ko.  1,  1848.  Of  the  two  estimates  of  the  poor  rate  mentioned  in  the 
text  one  was  formed  by  Arthur  Moore,  tlie  other,  some  years  later,  by  Kichaid 
Dunning.  Moore's  estimate  will  be  found  in  Davenant's  Essay  on  Ways  and 
Means  ;  Dunning's  in  Sir  Frederic  Eden's  valuable  work  on  the  jjoor.  King  and 
Davenant  estimate  the  paupers  and  beggars  in  1G96,  at  the  incredible  number  of 
l,3aO,000  out  of  a  population  of  5,500,000.  In  1846  the  number  of  persons  who 
received  relief  appears  from  the  official  returns  to  have  been  only  1,332,089  outot 
a  population  ot  about  17,000,000.  It  ought  also  to  be  observed  that,  in  tJiose  re- 
turns, a  pauper  must  very  ofteu  be  reckoned  more  than  once. 

I  would  advise  the  reader  to  consult  De  Foe's  pamphlet  entitled  "Giving 
Alms  no  Charity,"  and  the  Greenwich  tables  which  will  be  found  iu  Mr.  M'ChV* 
locb't  Commercial  Dictionary  under  the  head  Pricee. 


STATE    OF   ENGLAND    IN    1685.  38S 

his  cart  in  an  hour  was,  a  hundred  and  sixty  years  ago,  a  day's 
journey  from  him.  The  street  which  now  affords  to  the  artisan, 
during  the  whole  night,  a  secure,  a  convenient,  and  a  brilliantly 
lighted  walk  was,  a  hundred  and  sixty  years  ago,  so  dark  after 
sunset  that  he  would  not  have  been  able  to  see  his  hand,  so  ill 
paved  that  he  would  have  run  constant  risk  of  breaking  his  neck, 
and  so  ill  watched  that  he  would  have  been  in  imminent  danger 
of  being  knocked  down  and  plundered  of  his  small  earnings. 
Every  bricklayer  who  falls  from  a  scaffold,  every  sweeper  of 
a  crossing  who  is  run  over  by  a  carriage,  may  now  have  his 
wounds  dressed  and  his  limbs  set  with  a  skill  such  as,  a  hundred 
and  sixty  years  ago,  all  the  wealth  of  a  great  lord  like  Ormond, 
or  a  merchant  prince  like  Clayton,  could  not  have  purchased. 
Some  frightful  diseases  have  been  extirpated  by  science;  and 
some  have  been  banished  by  police.  The  term  of  human  life 
has  been  lengthened  over  the  whole  kingdom,  and  especially  in 
the  towns.  The  year  1G85  was  not  accounted  sickly  ;  yet  in 
the  year  1685  more  than  one  in  twenty-three  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  capital  died.*  At  present  only  one  inhabitant  of  the  cap- 
ital in  forty  dies  annually.  The  difference  in  salubrity  between 
the  London  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  the  London  of  the  sev- 
enteenth century  is  very  far  greater  than  the  difference  between 
London  in  an  ordinary  year  and  London  in  a  year  of  cholera. 

Still  more  important  is  the  benefit  which  all  orders  of 
society,  and  especially  the  lower  orders,  have  derived  from  the 
mollifying  influence  of  civilisation  on  the  national  character. 
The  groundwork  of  that  character  has  indeed  been  the  same 
through  many  generations,  in  the  sense  in  which  the  groundwork 
of  the  character  of  an  individual  may  be  said  to  be  the  same 
when  he  is  a  rude  and  thoughtless  schoolboy  and  when  he  is  a 
refined  and  accomplished  man.  It  is  pleasing  to  reflect  that  the 
public  mind  of  England  has  softened  while  it  has  ripened,  and 
that  we  have,  in  the  course  of  ages,  become,  not  only  a  wiser, 
but  also  a  kinder  people.  There  is  scarcely  a  page  of  the  his- 
tory or  lighter  literature  of  the  seventeenth  century  which  does 
not  contain  some  proof  that  our  ancestors  were  less  humane  than 

•  The  deaths  were  23,222.    Petty's  Political  Arithmetic. 


3&4  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

their  posterity.  The  discipline  of  workshops,  of  schools,  of  pri- 
vate families,  though  not  more  efficient  than  at  present,  was 
infinitely  harsher.  Masters,  well  born  and  bred,  were  in  the 
habit  of  beating  their  servants.  Pedagogues  knew  no  way  of 
imparting  knowledge  but  by  beating  their  pupils.  Husbands, 
of  decent  station,  were  not  ashamed  to  beat  their  wives.  The 
implacability  of  hostile  factions  was  such  as  we  can  scarcely  con- 
ceive. Whigs  were  disposed  to  murmur  because  Stafford  was 
suffered  to  die  without  seeing  his  bowels  burned  before  his  face. 
Tories  reviled  and  insulted  Russell  as  his  coach  passed  from  the 
Tower  to  the  scaffold  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.*  As  little  mercy 
was  shown  by  the  populace  to  sufferers  of  a  humbler  rank. 
If  an  offender  was  put  into  the  pillory,  it  was  well  if  he  escaped 
with  life  from  the  shower  of  brickbats  and  paving  stones.f  If 
he  was  tied  to  the  cart's  tail,  the  crowd  pressed  round  him,  im- 
ploring the  hangman  to  give  it  the  fellow  well,  and  make  him 
howl.$  Gentlemen  arranged  parties  of  pleasure  to  Bridewell 
on  court  days  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  the  wretched  women 
who  beat  hemp  there  whipped. §  A  man  pressed  to  death  for 
refusing  to  plead,  a  woman  burned  for  coining,  excited  less  sym- 
pathy than  is  now  felt  for  a  galled  horse  or  an  overdriven  ox. 
Fights  compared  with  which  a  boxing  match  is  a  refined  and 
humane  spectacle  were  among  the  favourite  diversions  of  a  large 
part  of  the  town.  Multitudes  assembled  to  see  gladiators  hack 
each  other  to  pieces  with  deadly  weapons,  and  shouted  with  de- 
light when  one  of  the  combatants  lost  a  finger  or  an  eye.  The  pris- 
ons were  hells  on  earth,  seminaries  of  every  crime  and  of  every 
disease.  At  the  assizes  the  lean  and  yellow  culprits  brought 
with  them  from  their  cells  to  the  dock  an  atmosphere  of  stench 
and  pestilence  which  sometimes  avenged  them  signally  on  bench, 
bar,  and  jury.  But  on  all  this  misery  society  looked  with  pro- 
found indifference.  Nowhere  could  be  found  that  sensitive  and 
restless  compassion  which  has,  in  our  time,  extended  a  powerful 
protection   to  the  factory  child,  to  the  Hindoo  widow,  to  the 

*  Buniet,  i.  560. 

t  Muggleton's  Acts  of  the  Witnesses  of  the  Spirit. 

i  Tom  Brown  describes  such  a  scene  in  lines  which  I  do  not  venture  to  quote. 

§  Ward's  London  Spy. 


STATE    OP    ENGLAND    IN    1G85.  385 

negro  slave,  which  pries  into  the  stores  and  watercasks  of  every 
emigrant  ship,  which  winces  at  every  lash  laid  on  the  back  of  a 
drunken  soldier,  which  will  not  suffer  the  thief  iu  the  hulks  to 
be  ill  fed  or  overworked,  and  which  has  repeatedly  endeavoured 
to  save  the  life  even  of  the  murderer.  It  is  true  that  compassion 
ouglit,  like  all  other  feelings,  to  be  under  the  government  of 
reason,  and  has,  for  want  of  such  government,  produced  some 
ridiculous  and  some  deplorable  effects.  But  the  more  we  study 
the  annals  of  the  past,  the  more  shall  we  rejoice  that  we  live  in 
a  merciful  age,  in  an  age  in  which  cruelty  is  abhorred,  and  iu 
which  pain,  even  when  deserved,  is  inflicted  reluctantly  and 
from  a  sense  of  duty.  Every  class  doubtless  has  gained  largely 
by  this  great  moral  change  :  but  the  class  which  has  gained  most 
is  the  poorest,  the  most  dependent,  and  the  most  defenceless. 

The  general  effect  of  the  evidence  which  has  been  submitted 
to  the  reader  seems  hardly  to  admit  of  doubt.  Yet,  in  spite  of 
evidence,  many  wjll  still  image  to  themselves  the  England  of  the 
Stuarts  as  a  more  pleasant  country  than  the  England  in  which 
we  live.  It  may  at  first  sight  seem  strange  that  society,  while 
constantly  moving  forward  with  eager  speed,  should  be  con- 
stantly looking  backward  with  tender  regret.  But  these  two 
propensities,  inconsistent  as  they  may  appear,  can  easily  be 
resolved  into  the  same  principle.  Both  spring  from  our 
impatience  of  the  state  in  which  we  actually  are.  That  impa- 
tience, while  it  stimulates  us  to  surpass  preceding  generations, 
disposes  us  to  overrate  their  happiness.  It  is,  in  some  sense, 
unreasonable  and  ungrateful  in  us  to  be  constantly  discontented 
with  a  condition  which  is  constantly  improving.  But,  in  truth, 
there  is  constant  imjjrovement  precisely  because  there  is  constant 
discontent.  If  we  were  perfectly  satisfied  with  the  present,  we 
should  cease  to  contrive,  to  labour,  and  to  save  with  a  view  to 
the  future.  And  it  is  natural  that,  being  dissatisfied  with  the 
present,  we  should  form  a  too  favourable  estimate  of  the  past. 

In  truth  we  are  under  a  deception  similar  to  that  which  mis- 
leads the  traveller  in  the  Arabian  desert.  Beneath  the  caravac 
all  IS  dry  and  bare  :  but  far  in  advance,  and  far  in  the  rear,  is 
the  semblance  of  refreshing  waters.     The  pilgrims  hasten  for* 


386  HISTORT    OF    ENGLAND. 

ward  and  find  nothing  but  sand  where  an  hour  before  they  had 
seen  a  lake.  They  turn  their  eyes  and  see  a  lake  where,  an 
nour  before,  they  were  toiling  through  sand.  A  similar  illusion 
seems  to  haunt  nations  through  every  stage  of  the  long  pro- 
gress from  poverty  and  barbarism  to  the  highest  degrees  of 
opulence  and  civilisation.  But  if  we  resolutely  chase  the  mirage 
backward,  we  shall  find  it  recede  before  us  into  the  regions  of 
fabulous  antiquity.  It  is  now  the  fashion  to  place  the  golden 
age  of  England  in  times  when  noblemen  were  destitute  of  com- 
forts the  want  of  which  would  be  intolerable  to  a  modern  foot- 
man, when  farmers  and  shopkeepers  bre;:!:fasted  on  loaves  the 
very  sight  of  which  would  raise  a  riot  in  r.  modern  workhouse, 
when  to  have  a  clean  shirt  once  a  week  was  a  privilege  reserved 
for  the  higher  class  of  gentry,  when  men  died  faster  in  the 
purest  country  air  than  they  now  die  in  the  most  pestilential  lanes 
of  our  towns,  and  when  men  died  faster  in  the  lanes  of  our 
towns  than  they  now  die  on  the  coast  of  Guiana.  We  too  shall, 
in  our  turn,  be  outstripped,  and  in  our  turn  be  envied.  It  may 
well  be,  in  the  twentieth  century,  that  the  peasant  of  Dorsetshire 
may  think  himself  miserably  paid  with  twenty  shillings  a  week-, 
that  the  carpenter  at  jGreenwich  may  receive  ten  shillings  a 
day;  that  laboring  men  may  be  as  little  used  to  dine  without 
meat  as  they  now  are  to  eat  rye  bread ;  that  sanitary  police  and 
medical  discoveries  may  have  added  several  more  years  to  the 
average  length  of  human  life;  that  numerous  comforts  and 
luxuries  which  are  now  unknown,  or  confined  to  a  few,  may  be 
within  the  reach  of  every  diligent  and  thrifty  woi'king  man. 
And  yet  it  may  then  be  the  mode  to  assert  that  the  increase  of 
wealth  and  the  progress  of  science  have  benefited  the  few  at 
the  expense  of  the  many,  and  to  talk  of  the  reign  of  Queen 
Victoria  as  the  time  when  England  was  truly  merry  England, 
when  all  classes  were  bound  together  by  brotherly  sympathy, 
when  the  rich  did  not  grind  the  faces  of  the  poor,  and  when  the 
poor  did  not  envy  the  splendor  of  the  rich. 


OH^BLES   THE   aECOND.  337 


CHAPTER  IV. 

The  deatli  of  King  Charles  the  Second  took  the  nation  by 
surprise.  His  frame  was  naturally  strong,  and  did  not  appear  to 
have  suffered  from  excess.  He  had  always  been  mindful  of  h''s 
health  even  in  his  pleasures ;  and  his  habits  were  such  as 
promise  a  long  life  and  a  robust  old  age.  Indolent  as  he  was 
on  all  occasions  which  required  tension  of  the  mind,  he  was 
active  and  persevering  in  bodily  exercise.  He  had,  when 
young,  been  renowned  as  a  tennis  player,*  and  was,  even  in  the 
decline  of  life,  an  indefatigable  walker.  His  ordinary  pace  was 
such  that  those  who  were  admitted  to  the  honour  of  his  society 
found  it  difficult  to  keep  up  with  him.  IIo  rose  early,  and 
generally  passed  three  or  four  hours  a  day  in  the  open  air.  He 
might  be  seen,  before  the  dew  was  off  the  grass  in  St.  James's 
Park,  striding  among  the  trees,  playing  witb  his  spaniels,  and 
flinging  corn  to  his  ducks ;  and  these  exhibitions  endeared  him 
to  the  common  people,  who  always  love  to  see  the  great 
unbend. t 

At  length,  towards  the  close  of  the  year  1684,  he  was  pre- 
vented, by  a  slight  attack  of  what  was  supposed  to  be  gout, 
from  rambling  as  usual.  He  now  spent  his  mornings  in  his 
laboratory,  where  he  amused  himself  with  experiments  on  the 
jproperties  of  mercury.  His  temper  seemed  to  have  suffered 
from  confinement.  He  had  no  apparent  cause  for  disquiet. 
His  kingdom  was  tranquil :  he  was  not  in  pressing  want  of 
money :  his  power  was  greater  than  it  had  ever  been  :  the 
party  which  had  long  thwarted  him  had  been  beaten  down ;  but 

•  Pepye's  Diary,  Dec.  28, 16C3,  Sept.  2, 1667. 

t  Burnet,  i.  606 ;  Spectator,  No.  462  ;   Lords'  Journals,  October  28,  16Z8 ; 
Gibber's  Apology, 


S88  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

the  cheerfulness  which  had  supported  him  against  adverse 
fortune  had  vanished  in  tMs  season  of  prosperity.  A  trifle  now 
suflSced  to  depress  those  elastic  spirits  which  had  borne  up 
against  defeat,  exile,  and  penury.  Ilis  irritation  frequently 
showed  itself  by  looks  and  words  such  as  could  hardly  have 
been  expected  from  a  man  so  eminently  distinguished  by  good 
humour  and  good  breeding.  It  was  not  supposed  however  that 
his  constitution  was  seriously  impaired.* 

His  palace  liad  seldom  presented  a  gayer  or  a  more  Ecanda- 
lous  appearance  than  on  the  evening  of  Sunday  the  first  of 
February  1  GSo.f  Some  grave  persons  who  liad  gone  thither, 
after  the  fashion  of  that  age,  to  pay  their  duty  to  their  sove- 
reign, and  who  had  expected  that,  on  such  a  day,  his:  court 
would  wear  a  decent  aspect,  were  struck  with  astonishment  and 
horror.  The  great  gallery  of  Whitehall,  an  admirable  relic  of 
the  magnificence  of  the  Tudors,  was  crowded  witli  revellers  and 
gamblers.  Tlie  king  sate  there  chatting  and  toying  with  three 
women,  whose  charms  were  the  boast,  and  whose  vices  were 
the  disgrace,  of  three  nations.  Barbara  Palmer,  Duchess  of 
Cleveland,  was  there,  no  longer  young,  but  still  retaining  some 
traces  of  that  superb  and  voluptuous  loveliness  which  twenty 
years  before  overcame  the  hearts  of  all  men.  There  too  was 
the  Duchess  of  Portsmouth,  whose  soft  and  infantine  features 
were  lighted  up  with  the  vivacity  of  France.  Hortei-^ia  Man- 
cini,  Duchess  of  Mazarin,  and  niece  of  the  gTeat  Cardinal, 
completed  the  group.  She  had  been  early  removed  from  her 
native  Italy  to  the  court  where  her  uncle  was  supreme.  Ilis 
power  and  her  own  attractions  had  drawn  a  crowd  of  illus- 
trious  suitors  round  her.  Charles  himself,  during  his  exile,  had 
sought  her  hand  in  vain.  No  gift  of  nature  or  of  fortune 
seemed  to  be  wanting  to  her.  Her  face  was  beautiful  with  the 
rich  beauty  of  the  South,  her  understanding  quick,  her  manners 
graceful,  her  rank  exalted,  her  possessions  immense ;  but  her 
ungovernable   passions   had   turned    all   these    blessings   into 

•  Buniet.l.  605,  e06  ;  "Wei wood  ;  North's  Life  of  Guildford,  251. 

t  I  may  take  this  opportunity  of  mentioning  that  whenever  I  give  only  one 
date,  I  follow  the  old  style,  which  was,  in  the  seventeenth  c«nturyf  tha  Btijrle  of 
England ;  but  I  reckon  the  year  from  the  first  of  January, 


CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  389 

curses.  She  had  found  the  misery  of  an  ill  assorted  marriage 
intolerable,  had  fled  from  her  husband,  had  abandoned  lier  vast 
wealth,  and,  after  having  astonished  Rome  and  Piedmont  by 
her  adventures,  had  fixed  her  abode  in  England.  Her  housw 
was  the  favourite  resort  of  men  of  wit  and  pleasure,  who,  foi 
^the  sake  of  her  smiles  and  her  table,  endured  her  frequent  fits 
of  insolence  and  ill  humour.  Rochester  and  Godolphiu  sonie- 
tiirfes  forgot  the  cares  of  state  in  her  company.  BarJiV.n  and 
Saint  Evremond  found  in  her  drawing  room  consolation  for 
their'  long  banishment  from  Paris.  The  learning  of  Vossius, 
the  wit  of  Waller,  were  daily  employed  to  flatter  and  amuse 
her.  But  her  diseased  mind  required  stronger  stimulants,  and 
sought  them  in  gallantry,  in  basset,  and  in  usquebaugh.* 
While  Charles  flirted  with  his  three  sultanas,  Hortensia's 
French  page,  a  handsome  boy,  whose  vocal  performances  were 
the  delight  of  Whitehall,  and  were  rewarded  by  numerous 
presents  of  rich  clothes,  ponies,  and  guineas,  warbled  some 
amorous  verses.f  A  party  of  twenty  courtiers  was  seated  at 
cards  round  a  large  table  on  which  gold  was  heaped  in  moun- 
tains, t  Even  then  the  King  had  complained  that  he  did  not 
feel  quite  well.  He  had  no  appetite  for  his  supper :  his  rest 
that  night  was  broken  ;  but  on  the  following  morning  he  rose, 
as  usual,  early. 

To  that  morning  the  contending  factions  in  his  council  had, 
during  some  day^,  looked  forward  with  anxiety.  The  struggle 
between  Halifax  and  Rochester  seemed  to  be  approaching  a 
decisive  crisis.  Halifax,  not  content  with  having  already 
driven  his  rival  from  the  Board  of  Treasury,  had  undertaken  to 
prove  him  guilty  of  such  dishonesty  or  neglect  in  the  conduct 
of  the  finances  as  ought  to  be  jiunished  by  dismission  from  the 
public  service.  It  was  even  whispered  that  the  Lord  President 
would  probably  be  sent  to  the  Tower.  The  King  had  promised 
to  enquire  into  the  matter.  The  second  of  February  had  been 
fixed  for  the  investigation  ;  and  several  officers  of  the  revenue 

*  Saint  Everemond, /?a.ssi??i ;  Saint  Real,  M«5moires  de  la  Duchesse  de  Maza- 
riu  ;  Rochester's  Farewell ;  Evelyn's  Diary,  Sept.  6,  1676,  June  11,  leSS. 


390  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

had  been  ordered  to  attend  with  their  books  on  that  day.*    But 
d.  great  turn  of  fortune  was  at  hand. 

Scarcely  had  Charles  risen  from  his  bed  when  his  attend- 
ants perceived  that  his  utterance  was  indistinct,  and  that  his 
thoughts  seemed  to  be  wandering.  Several  men  of  rank  had, 
as  usual,  assembled  to  see  their  sovereign  shaved  and  dressed. 
He  made  an  effort  to  converse  with  them  in  his  usual  gay 
style  ;  but  his  ghastly  look  surprised  and  alarmed  them.  Soon 
his  faco  grew  black  ;  his  eyes  turned  in  his  head  ;  he  uttered  a 
cry,  staggered,  and  fell  into  the  arms  of  one  of  his  lords.  A 
physician  who  had  charge  of  the  royal  retorts  and  crucibles 
happened  to  be  present.  lie  had  no  lancet ;  but  he  opened  a 
vein  with  a  penknife.  The  blood  flowed  freely  ;  but  the  King 
was  still  insensible. 

He  was  laid  on  his  bed,  where,  during  a  short  time,  the 
Duchess  of  Portsmouth  huug  over  him  with  the  familiarity  of 
a  wife.  But  the  alarm  had  been  given.  The  Queen  and  the 
Duchess  of  York  were  hastening  to  the  room.  The  favour- 
ite concubine  was  forced  to  retire  to  her  own  apartments.  Those 
apartments  had  been  thrice  pulled  down  and  thrice  rebuilt  by 
her  lover  to  gratify  her  caprice.  The  very  furniture  of  the 
chimney  was  massy  silver.  Several  fine  paintings,  which  prop- 
erly belonged  to  the  Queen,  had  been  transferred  to  the  dwell- 
ing of  the  mistress.  The  sideboards  were  piled  with  richly 
wrought  plate.  In  the  niches  stood  cabinets,  the  masterpieces  of 
Japanese  art.  On  the  hangings,  fresh  from  the  looms  of  Paris, 
were  depicted,  in  tints  which  no  English  tapestry  could  rival, 
birds  of  gorgeous  plumage,  landscapes,  hunting  matches,  the 
lordly  terrace  of  Saint  Germains,  the  statues  and  fountains  of 
Versailles.f  In  the  midst  of  tliis  splendour,  purchased  by 
guilt  and  ehame,  the  unhappy  woman  gave  herself  up  to  an 
agony  of  grief,  which,  to  do  her  justice,  was  not  wholly  sel- 
fish. 


•  Roger  North's  Life  of  Sir  Dudley  Nortli,  170  ;  The  tnie  Patriot  vindicated 

»r  a  Justification  of  his  Excellency  the  E of  R ;  Bura&t,  i.  605.  The  Treaa* 

nry  Books  prove  that  Burnet  had  good  intelligence. 

t  Evelyn's  Diary,  Jan.  24, 1681-2,  Oct.  4, 1683. 


CHARLES    THE    SECOND  391 

And  now  the  gates  of  Wliitehall,  wliick  ordinarily  stood 
open  to  all  comers,  were  closed.  But  persons  whose  faces 
were  known  were  still  permitted  to  enter.  The  antechambers 
and  galleries  were  soon  filled  to  overflowing  ;  and  even  the  sick 
room  was  crowded  with  peers,  i)rivj  councillors,  and  foreign 
ministers.  All  the  medical  men  of  note  iu  London  were  sum- 
moned. So  high  did  political  animosities  run  that  the  presence 
of  some  Whig  physicians  was  regarded  as  an  extraordinary 
circumstance.*  One  Roman  Catholic,  whose  skill  was  then 
widely  renowned,  Doctor  Thomas  Short,  was  iu  attendance. 
Several  of  the  prescriptions  have  been  preserved.  One  of  them 
is  signed  by  fourteen  Doctors.  The  patient  was  bled  largely. 
Hot  iron  was  applied  to  his  head.  A  loathsome  volatile  salt, 
extracted  from  human  skulls,  was  forced  into  his  mouth.  He 
recovered  his  senses ;  but  he  was  evidently  in  a  situation  of 
extreme  danger. 

The  Queen  was  for  a  time  assiduous  in  her  attendance.  The 
Duke  of  York  scarcely  left  his  brother's  bedside.  The  Primate 
and  four  other  bishops  were  then  in  London.  They  remained 
at  Whitehall  all  day,  and  took  it  by  turns  to  sit  up  at  night  in 
the  King's  room.  The  news  of  his  illness  filled  the  capital  with 
sorrow  and  dismay.  For  his  easy  temper  and  affable  manners 
had  won  the  affection  of  a  large  part  of  the  nation  ;  and  those 
who  most  disliked  him  preferred  his  unprincipled  levity  to  the 
stern  and  earnest  bigotry  of  his  brother* 

On  the  morning  of  Thursday  the  fifth  of  February,  the 
London  Gazette  announced  that  His  Majesty  was  going  on  well, 
and  was  thought  by  the  physicians  to  be  out  of  danger.  The 
bells  of  all  the  churches  rang  merrily ;  and  preparations  for 
bonfires  were  made  in  the  streets.  But  iu  the  evening  it  was 
known  that  a  relapse  had  taken  place,  and  that  the  medical 
attendants  had  given  up  all  hope.  The  public  mind  was  great- 
ly disturbed ;  but  there  was  no  disjjosition  to  tumult.  The 
Duke,  of  York,  who  had  already  taken  on  himself  to  give 
orders,  ascertained  that  the  City  was  perfectly  quiet,  and  that 

*  Dugdale's  Correspondence, 


392  HISTOKY    OF   ENGLAND. 

he  might  without  difficulty  be  proclaimed  as  soon  as  his  brother 
should  expire. 

The  King  was  in  great  pain,  and  complained  that  he  felt  as 
if  a  fire  was  burning  within  him.  Yfet  he  bove  up  against  his 
suiierinors  with  a  fortitude  which  did  not  seem  to  belong  to  his 
soft  and  luxurious  nature.  The  sio'ht  of  his  mlserv  aifected  his 
wife  so  much  that  she  fainted,  and  was  carried  senseless  to  her 
chamber.  The  prelates  who  were  in  waiting  had  from  the  first 
exhorted  him  to  prepare  for  his  end.  They  now  thought  it 
their  duty  to  address  him  in  a  still  more  urgent  manner.  Wil- 
liam Bancroft,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  an  honest  and  pious, 
though  narrowminded,  man,  used  great  freedom.  "  It  is  time," 
he  said,  "  to  speak  out ;  for,  Sir,  you  are  about  to  appear  before 
a  Judge  who  is  no  respecter  of  persons."  The  King  answered 
not  a  word. 

Thomas  Ken,  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells,  then  tried  his 
powers  of  persuasion.  He  was  a  man  of  parts  and  learning,  of 
quick  sensibility  and  stainless  virtue.  IHs  elaborate  works  have 
long  been  forgotten  ;  but  his  morning  and  evening  hymns  are 
still  repeated  daily  in  thousands  of  dwellings.  Though,  like 
most  of  his  order,  zealous  for  monarchy,  he  was  no  sycophant. 
Before  he  became  a  Bishop,  he  had  maintained  the  honour  of  his 
gown  by  refusing,  when  the  court  was  at  Winchester,  to  let 
Eleanor  Gwynn  lodge  in  the  house  which  he  occupied  there  as 
a  prebendary.*  The  King  had  sense  enough  to  respect  so 
manly  a  spirit.  Of  all  the  prelates  he  liked  Ken  the  best.  It 
was  to  no  purpose,  however,  that  the  good  Bishop  now  put  forth 
all  his  eloquence.  His  solemn  and  pathetic  exhortation  awed 
and  melted  the  bystanders  to  such  a  degree  that  some  among 
them  believed  him  to  be  filled  with  the  same  spirit  which,  in  the 
old  time,  had,  by  the  mouths  of  Nathan  and  Elias,  called  sinful 
princes  to  repentance.  Charles  however  was  unmoved.  He 
made  no  objection  indeed  when  the  service  for  the  visitation  of 
the  sick  was  read.  In  reply  to  the  pressing  questions  of  the 
divines,  he  said  that  he  was  sorry  for  what  he  had  done  amiss ; 

*  Hawkins's  Life  of  Ken,  1713* 


CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  393 

and  he  suffered  tlie  iibsolufcion  to  be  pronounced  over  him  ao 
cording  to  the  forms  of  the  Church  of  England :  but,  when  he 
was  urged  to  declare  that  he  died  in  the  communion  of  that 
Church,  he  seemed  not  to  hear  what  was  said  ;  and  nothing  could 
induce  him  to  take  the  Eucharist  fi'om  the  hands  of  the  Bishops. 
A  table  with  bread  and  wine  was  brought  to  his  bedside,  but  in 
vain.  Sometimes  he  said  that  there  was  no  hurry,  and  some- 
times that  he  was  too  weak. 

Many  attributed  this  apathy  to  contempt  for  divine  things, 
and  many  to  the  stupor  which  often  precedes  death.  But  there 
were  in  the  palace  a  few  persons  who  knew  better.  Charles 
had  never  been  a  sincere  member  of  the  Established  Church. 
His  mind  had  long  oscillated  between  Hobbism  and  Popery. 
When  his  health  was  good  and  his  spirits  high  he  was  a  scoffer. 
In  his  few  serious  moments  he  was  a  Roman  Catholic.  The 
Duke  of  York  was  aware  of  this,  but  was  entirely  occupied 
with  the  care  of  his  own  interests.  He  had  ordered  the  outports 
to  be  closed.  He  had  posted  detachments  of  the  Guards  in  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  city.  He  had  also  procured  the  feeble  signa- 
ture of  the  dying  King  to  an  instrument  by  which  some  duties, 
granted  only  till  the  demise  of  the  Crown,  were  let  to  farm  for 
a  term  of  three  years.  These  things  occupied  the  attention  of 
James  to  such  a  degree  that,  though,  on  ordinary  occasions,  he 
was  indiscreetly  and  unseasonably  eager  to  bring  over  proselytes 
to  his  Church,  he  never  reflected  that  his  brotlier  was  in  danger 
of  dying  without  the  last  sacraments.  This  neglect  was  the 
more  extraordinary  because  the  Duchess  of  York  had,  at  the 
request  of  the  Queen,  suggested,  on  the  morning  on  which  the 
King  was  taken  ill,  the  propriety  of  procuring  spiritual  assist- 
ance. For  such  assistance  Charles  was  at  last  indebted  to  an 
agency  very  different  from  that  of  his  pious  wife  and  sister-in- 
law.  A  life  of  frivolty  and  vice  had  not  extinguished  in  the 
Duchess  of  Portsmouth  all  sentiments  of  religion,  or  all  that 
kindness  which  is  the  glory  of  her  sex.  The  French  ambassador 
Barillon,  who  had  come  to  the  palace  to  enquire  after  the  King, 
paid  her  a  visit.  He  found  her  in  an  agony  of  sorrow.  She 
took  him  into  a  secret  room,  and  poured  out  her  whole  heart  to 


394  niSTOBT  OP  England.    - 

him.  "  I  have,"  she  said,  "  a  thing  of  great  moment  to  teQ  yon 
If  it  were  known,  my  head  would  be  in  danger.  The  Kin"-  ia 
really  and  truly  a  Catholic ;  but  he  will  die  without  being  rec- 
onciled to  the  Church.  His  bedchamber  is  full  of  Protestant 
clergymen.  I  cannot  enter  it  without  giving  scandal.  Tho- 
Duke  is  thinking  only  of  himself.  Speak  to  him.  Remind  him 
that  there  is  a  soul  at  stake.  He  is  master  now.  He  can  clear 
the  room.     Go  this  instant,  or  it  will  be  too  late." 

Barillon  hastened  to  the  bedchamber,  took  the  Duke  aside, 
and  delivered  the  message  of  the  mistress.  The  conscience  of 
James  smote  liim.  He  started  as  if  roused  from  sleep,  and  de- 
clared that  nothing  should  prevent  him  from  discharging  the 
sacred  duty  which  had  been  too  long  delayed.  Several  schemes 
were  discussed  and  rejected.  At  last  the  Duke  commanded  the 
crowd  to  stand  aloof,  went  to  the  bed,  stooped  down,  and  whis- 
pered something  which  none  of  the  spectators  could  hear,  but 
which  they  suj^posed  to  be  some  question  about  affairs  of  state. 
Charles  answered  in  an  audible  voice,  "  Yes,  yes,  with  all  my 
heart."  None  of  the  bystanders,  except  the  French  Ambassador, 
'  guessed  that  the  King  was  declaring  his  wish  to  be  admitted  into 
the  bosom  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 

"  Shall  I  bring  a  priest  ?  "  said  the  Duke, .  "  Do,  brother," 
replied  the  sick  man.  "  For  God's  sake  do,  and  lose  no  time. 
But  no  ;  you  will  get  into  trouble."  "  If  it  costs  me  my  life," 
said  the  Duke,  "  I  will  fetch  a  priest." 

To  find  a  priest,  however,  for  such  a  purpose,  at  a  moment's 
notice,  was  not  easy.  For,  as  the  law  then  stood,  the  person 
who  admitted  a  proselyte  into  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  was 
guilty  of  a  capital  crime.  The  Count  of  Castel  Melhor,  a 
Portuguese  nobleman,  who,  driven  by  political  troubles  from 
his  native  land,  had  been  hospitably  received  at  the  English 
court,  undertook  to  procure  a  confessor.  He  had  recourse  to 
his  countrymen  who  belonged  to  the  Queen's  household ;  but  he 
found  that  none  of  lier  chaplains  knew  English  or  French 
enough  to  shrive  the  King.  The  Duke  and  Barillon  were  about 
to  send  to  the  Venetian  Minister  for  a  clergyman  when  they 
heard  that  a  Benedictine  monk,  named  Joliii  Huddlestou,  happen- 


CHARLES   THE   SECOND.  395 

ed  to  be  at  Whitehall.  Tliis  man  had,  with  great  risk  to  him 
self,  saved  the  King's  life  after  the  battle  of  Worcester,  tind 
had,  on  that  account,  been,  ever  since  the  Restoration,  a  privi- 
leged person.  In  the  sharpest  proclamations  which  had  been 
put  forth  against  Popish  priests,  when  false  witnesses  had 
inflamed  the  nation  to  fury,  Huddleston  had  been  excepted  by 
name.*  ITe  readily  consented  to  put  his  life  a  second  time  in 
peril  for  his  prince;  but  there  was  still  a  difficulty.  The 
honest  monk  was  so  illiterate  that  he  did  not  know  what  he 
ought  to  say  on  an  occasion  of  such  importance.  He  however 
obtained  some  hints,  through  the  intervention  of  Castel  Melhor, 
from  a  Portuguese  ecclesiastic,  and,  thus  instructed,  was  brought 
up  the  back  stairs  by  Chiffinch,  a  confidential  servant,  who,  if 
the  satires  of  that  age  are  to  be  credited,  had  often  introduced 
visitors  of  a  very  different  description  by  the  same  entrance. 
The  Duke  then,  in  the  King's  name,  commanded  all  who  were 
present  to  quit  .the  room,  except  Lewis  Duras,  Earl  of  Fever- 
sham,  and  John  Granville,  Earl  of  Bath.  Both  these  Lords 
professed  the  Protestant  religion  ;  but  James  conceived  that  he 
could  count  on  their  fidelity.  Feversham,  a  Frenchman  of  noble 
birth,  and  nephew  of  the  great  Turenne,  held  high  rank  in  the 
English  army,  and  was  Chamberlain  to  the  Queen.  Bath  was 
Groom  of  the  Stole. 

The  Duke's  orders  were  obeyed ;  and  even  the  physicians 
withdrew.  The  back  door  was  then  opened  ;  and  Father  Hud- 
dleston entered.  A  cloak  had  been  thrown  over  his  sacred 
vestments ;  and  his  shaven  crown  was  concealed  by  a  flowing 
wig  ''  Sir,"  said  the  Duke,  "  this  good  man  once  saved  your 
/ife.  He  now  comes  to  save  your  soul."  Charles  faintly  an- 
swered, "  He  is  welcome."  Huddleston  went  through  his  part 
better  than  had  been  expected.  He  knelt  by  the  bed,  listened 
to  the  confession,  pronounced  the  absolution,  and  administered 
extreme  unction.  He  asked  if  the  King  wished  to  receive  the 
Lord's  supper.    "  Surely,"  said  Charles,  "  if  I  am  not  unworthy.'* 

•  See  the  London  Gazette  of  Nov.  21,  167ft.  Barillon  and  Burnet  say  that 
Huddleston  was  excepted  out  of  all  the  Acts  of  Parliament  made  against  priests  j 
laut  this  is  a  mistake. 


396  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

The  host  was  brought  in.  Charles  feebly  strove  to  rise  and 
kneel  before  it.  The  priest  made  him  lie  still,  and  assured  him 
that  God  would  accept  the  humiliation  of  the  soul,  and  would 
not  require  the  humiliation  of  the  body.  The  King  found  so 
much  difficulty  in  swallowing  the  bread  that  it  was  necessary 
to  open  the  door  and  procure  a  glass  of  water.  This  rite  ended, 
the  monk  held  up  a  crucifix  before  the  penitent,  charged  him  to 
fix  his  last  thoughts  on  the  sufferings  of  the  Redeemer,  and 
withdrew.  The  whole  ceremony  had  occupied  about  three 
quarters  of  an  hour ;  and,  during  that  time,  the  courtiers  who 
filled  the  outer  room  had  communicated  their  suspicions  to  each 
other  by  whispers  and  significant  glances.  The  door  was  at 
length  thrown  open,  and  the  crowd  again  filled  the  chamber  of 
death. 

It  was  now  late  in  the  evening.  The  King  seemed  much 
relieved  by  what  had  passed.  His  natural  children  were  brought 
to  his  bedside,  the  Dukes  of  Grafton,  Southampton,  and  North- 
umberland, sons  of  the  Duchess  of  Cleveland,  the  Duke  of 
Saint  Albans,  son  of  Eleanor  Gwynn,  and  the  Duke  of  Bich- 
mond,  son  of  the  Duchess  of  Portsmouth.  Charles  blessed 
them  all,  but  spoke  with  peculiar  tenderness  to  Richmond. 
One  face  which  should  have  been  there  was  wanting.  The 
eldest  and  best  loved  child  was  an  exile  and  a  wanderer.  Plis 
name  was  not  once  mentioned  by  his  father. 

During  the  night  Charles  earnestly  recommended  the  Duchess 
of  Portsmouth  and  her  boy  to  the  care  of  James  ;  "  And  do 
not,"  he  good-naturedly  added,  "  let  poor  Nelly  starve."  The 
Queen  sent  excuses  for  her  absence  by  Halifax.  She  said  that 
she  was  too  much  disordered  to  resume  her  post  by  tlie  couch, 
and  implored  pardon  for  any  offence  which  she  might  unwittingly 
have  given.  "  She  ask  my  pardon,  poor  woman !  "  cried  Charles  ; 
*'  I  ask  hers  with  all  my  heart." 

The  morning  light  began  to  peep  through  the  windows  of 
"Whitehall  i  and  Charles  desired  the  attendants  to  pull  aside  the 
curtains,  that  he  might  have  one  more  look  at  the  day.  He 
remarked  that  it  was  time  to  wind  up  a  clock  which  stood  neai 
bis  bed.      These  little  circumstances  were  long  remembered 


CHARLES    THE    SECOND.  397 

because  they  proved  beyond  dispute  that,  when  he  declared  him- 
self a  Roman  Catholic,  he  was  in  full  possession  of  his  faculties, 
He  apologised  to  those  who  had  stood  romid  him  all  night  for 
the  trouble  which  he  had  caused.  He  had  been,  he  said,  a  most 
unconscionable  time  dying ;  but  he  hoped  that  they  would  excuse 
it.  This  was  the  last  glimpse  of  the  exquisite  urbanity,  so  often 
found  potent  to  charm  away  the  resentment  of  a  justly  incensed 
nation.  Soon  after  dawn  the  speech  of  the  dyijig  man  failed. 
Before  ten  his  senses  were  gone.  Great  numbers  had  repaired 
to  the  churches  at  the  hour  of  morning  service.  When  thfc 
prayer  for  the  King  was  read,  loud  groans  and  sobs  showed. how 
deeply  his  people  felt  for  him.  At  noon  on  Friday,  the  sixth 
of  February,  he  passed  away  without  a  struggle.* 

»  Clark's  Life  of  James  the  Second,  i.  746.  Orig.  Mem.  ;  Barillon's  Despatch  of 
Feb.  1-18, 1685;  Vaii  Citters's  Despatches  of  Feb.  3-13  and  Feb.  6-16.  Huddleston's 
Narrative;  Letters  of    Philip,  seco.id  Earl  of  Chestei-field,  277 ;   Sir  H.  Ellis's 
Original  Letters,  First  Seiies,  iii.   333 ;    Second  Series,  iv.  74  ;    Chaillot  MS.  ; 
Burnet,  i.  606  ;  Evelyn's  Diary,  Feb.  4,  1684-5  ;  Wei  wood's  Memories,  140  ;  North's 
Life  of  Guildford,  252  ;  Examen,  648  ;  Hawkins's  Life  of  Ken  ;  Dryden's  Thren- 
odia  Augustalis  ;   Sir  H.  Halford's  Essay  on  Deaths  of  Eminent  Persons.    See 
also  a  fragment  of  a  letter  written  by  tlie  Earl  of  Ailesbury,  which  is  printed  in 
the  European  Magazine  for  April,  1795.  Ailesbury  calls  Burjiet  an  impostor.    Yet 
his  own  narrative  and  Burnet's  will  not,  to  any  candid  and  sensible  reader,  ap- 
pear to  contradict  each  other.    I  have  seen  in  the  British  Museum,  and  also  in 
the  Librai-y  of  the  Royal  Institution,  a  curious  broadside  containing  an  account 
of  the  de.ath  of  Charles.    It  will  be  found  in  the  Somers  Collections.    The  author 
was  evidently  a  zealous   Roman    Catholic,  and  must  have  had  access  to  good 
sources  of  infoiTnation.     I  strongly  suspect  that  he  had  been  in  communication, 
directly  or  indirectly,  with    James  himself.    No  name  is  given  at  length  :  but 
the  initials  are  perfectly  intelligible,  except  in  one  place.    It  is  said  that  the  D. 
of  Y.  was  reminded  of  the  duty  which  he  owed  to  his  brother  by  P.  M.  A.  C.  F.   I 
must  own  myself  quite  unable  to  decipher  the  last  five  letters.    It  is  some  conso- 
lation that  Sir  "Walter  Scott  was  equally  unsuccessful.     (1848.)    Since  the  first 
edition  of  this  work  was  published,  several  ingenious  conjectiires  touching  these 
mysterious  letters  have  been  communicated  to  me  ;  but  I  am  convinced  that  the 
true  solution  has  not  yet  been  suggested.  (1850.')  I  still  greatly  doubt  whether  the 
riddle  has  been  solved.    But  the  most  plausible  interpretation  is  one  which,  with 
some  variations,  occuiTed.  almost  at    the  same   time,  to  myself  and  to  several 
other  persons ;  I  am  inclined  to  read   "  Pere  Mansuete  A  Cordelier  Friar." 
Mansuete,  a  Cordelier,  was  then  James's  confessor.      To  Mansuete  therefore  it 
peculiarly  belonged  to  remind  James  of  a  sacred  duty  which  had  been  culpably 
neglected.    The  writer  of  the  broadside  must  have  been  unwilling  to  inform  the 
■world  that  a  soul   which  many  devout  Roman   Catholics  had  left  to  perish  had 
been  snatched  from  destruction  by  the  courageous  charity  of  a  woman  of  loose 
character.    It  is  therefore  not  unlikely  that  be  would  prefer  a  fiction,  at  once 
probable  and  edifying,  to  a  truth  which  could  not  fail  to  give  scandal.    (ia56.) 
It  should  seem  ttiat  no  transactions  in  history  ought  to  be  more  accurately. 


398  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

At  that  time  the  common  people  throughout  Europe,  and 
nowhere  more  than  in  England,  were  in  the  habit  of  attribu- 
ting the  death  of  princes,  especially  when  the  prince  was 
popular  and  the  death  unexpected,  to  the  foulest  and  darkest 
kind  of  assassination.  Thus  Jam6s  the  -First  had  been 
accused  of  poisoning  Prince  Henry.  Thus  Charles  the  First 
had  been  accused  of  poisoning  James  the  First.  Thus  when,  in 
the  time  of  the  Commonwealth,  the  Princess  Elizabeth  died  at 
Carisbrook,  it  was  loudly  asserted  that  Cromwell  had  stooped 
to  the  senseless  and  dastardly  wickedness  of  mixing  noxious 
drugs  with  the  food  of  a  young  girl  whom  he  had  no  con- 
ceivable motive  to  injure.*  A  few  years  later,  the  rapid  de- 
composition of  Cromwell's  own  corpse  was  ascribed  by  many 
to  a  deadly  potion  administered  in  his  medicine.  The  death 
of  Charles  the   Second  could  scarcely  fail   to   occasion   similar 

known  to  us  than  those  which  took  place  round  the  deathbed  of  Charles  the 
Second.  We  have  several  relations  written  by  persons  who  were  actually  in  his 
room.  "We  have  several  relations  written  by  persons  who,  though  not  themselves 
eyewitnesses,  had  the  best  opportunity  of  obtaining  information  from  eye- 
witnesses. Yet  whoever  attempts  to  digest  this  vast  mass  of  materials  into  a 
consistent  narrative  will  find  the  task  a  difficult  one.  Indeed  James  and  hia 
wife,  when  they  told  the  story  to  the  nuns  of  Chaillot,  could  not  agree  as  to 
some  circumstances.  The  Queen  said  that,  after  Charles  had  received  the  last 
sacraments  the  Protestant  Bishops  renewed  their  exhortations.  The  King  said 
that  nothing  of  the  kind  took  place.  "  Surely,"  s.Tid  the  Queen,  "  you  told  mo  so 
yourself."  "It  is  impossible  that  I  have  told  you  so,"  said  the  King  ;  "for 
nothing  of  the  sort  happened." 

It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  Sir  Henry  Ilalford  should  have  taken  bo  little 
trouble  ascertain  the  facts  on  which  he  pronounced  judgment.  He  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  aware  of  the  existence  of  the  narrative  of  James,  Barillou,  and  Huddle- 
ston. 

As  this  is  the  first  occasion  on  which  I  cite  the  correspondence  of  the  Dutch 
ministers  at  the  English  court,  I  ought  here  to  mention  that  a  series  of  their 
despatches,  from  the  accession  of  James  the  Second  to  his  flight,  forms  one  of 
the  most  valuable  parts  of  the  Mackintosh  collections.  The  subsequent  dcs- 
patches,  down  to  the  settlement  of  the  government  in  February,  1689, 1  procured 
from  the  Hague.  The  Dutch  archives  have  been  far  too  little  explored.  They 
abound  with  information  interesting  in  the  highest  degree  to  every  Englishman. 
They  are  admirably  arranged  ;  and  they  are  in  the  charge  of  gentlemen  whose 
courtesy,  liberality  and  zeal  for  the  interests  of  literature,  cannot  be  too  highly 
praised.  I  wish  to  acknowledge,  in  the  strongest  manner,  my  own  obligations  to 
Mr.  De  .Jonge  and  to  Mr.  Van  Zwanne. 

*  Clarendon  mentions  this  calumny  with  just  scorn.  "According  to  the 
charity  of  the  time  towards  Cromwell,  very  many  would  have  it  believed  to  l>e 
by  poison,  of  which  there  was  no  appearance,  nor  any  proof  ever  after  made.  "-^ 
Book  xiv. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  399 

rumours.  The  public  ear  had  been  repeatedly  abused  by 
stories  of  Popish  plots  against  his  life.  There  was,  therefore, 
in  many  minds,  a  strong  predisposition  to  suspicion  ;  and 
there  were  some  unlucky  circumstances  which,  to  minds  so 
predisposed,  might  seem  to  indicate  that  a  crime  had  been 
perpetrated.  The  fourteen  Doctors  who  deliberated  on  the 
Kinsf's  case  contradicted  each  other  and  themselves.  Some 
of  them  thought  that  his  fit  was  epileptic,  and  that  he  should 
be  suffered  to  have  his  doze  out.  The  majority  pronounced^ 
him  apoplectic,  and  tortured  him  during  some  hours  like  an 
Indian  at  a  stake.  Then  it  was  determined  to  call  his  com- 
plaint a  "fever,  and  to  administer  doses  of  bark.  One  physician, 
however,  prptested  against  this  course,  and  assured  the  Queen 
that  his  brethren  would  kill  the  King  among  them.  Nothing 
better  than  dissension  and  vacillation  could  be  expected  from 
such  a  multitude  of  advisers.  But  many  of  the  vulgar  not 
unnaturally  concluded,  from  the  perplexity  of  the  great 
masters  of  the  healing  art,  that  the  malady  had  some  ex- 
traordinary origin.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  a  horrible 
suspicion  did  actually  cross  the  mind  of  Short,  who,  though 
skilfid  in  his  profession,  seems  to  have  been  a  nervous  and 
fanciful  man,  and  whose  perceptions  were  probably  confused 
by  dread  of  the  odious  imputations  to  which  he,  as  a  Roman 
Catholic,  was  peculiarly  exposed.  We  cannot,  therefoi'e, 
wonder  that  wild  stories  without  number  were  repeated  and 
believed  by  the  common  people.  His  Majesty's  tongue  had 
swelled  to  the  size  of  a  neat's  tongue.  A  cake  of  deleterious 
powder  had  been  found  in  his  brain.  There  were  blue  spots 
on  his  breast.  There  were  black  spots  on  his  shoulder.  Some- 
thing had  been  put  in  his  snuff-box.  Something  had  been 
put  into  his  broth.  Something  had  been  put  into  his  favourite 
dish  of  eggs  and  ambergrease.  The  Duchess  of  Portsmouth 
had  poisoned  him  in  a  cup  of  chocolate.  The  Queen  had 
poisoned  him  in  a  jar  of  dried  pears.  Such  tales  ought  to  be 
preserved  ;  for  they  furnish  us  with  a  measure  of  the  intelli- 
gence and  virtue  of  the  generation  which  eagerly  devoured 
them.     That  po  ruajoiir  of  the  same  kind  Jias  ev^r,  i»  tb§ 


400  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

present  age,  found  credit  among  us,  even  when  lives  on  which 
great  interest  depended  have  been  terminated  by  unforeseen 
attacks  of  disease,  is  to  be  attributed  partly  to  the  progress  of 
medical  and  chemical  science,  but  partly  also,  it  may  be  hoped, 
to  the  progress  which  the  nation  has  made  in  good  sense, 
justice,  and  humanity.* 

When  all  was  over,  James  retired  from  the  bedside  to  his 
closet,  where,  during  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  he  remained  alone. 
Meanwhile  the  Privy  Councillors  who  were  in  the  palace  as- 
sembled. The  new  King  came  forth,  and  took  his  place  at 
the  head  of  the  board.  He  commenced  his  administration, 
according  to  usage,  by  a  speech  to  the  Council.  He  expressed 
his  regret  for  the  loss  which  he  had  just  sustained,  and  he 
promised  to  imitate  the  dugular  lenity  which  had  distin- 
guished the  late  reign.  He  was  aware,  he  said,  that  he  had 
been  accused  of  a  fondness  for  arbitrary  power.  But  that 
was  not  the  only  falsehood  which  had  been  told  of  him.  He 
was  resolved  to  maintain  the  established  government  both  in 
Church  and  State.  The  Church  of  England  he  knew  to  be 
eminently  loyal.  It  should  therefore  always  be  his  care  to 
support  and  defend  her.  The  laws  of  England,  he  also  knew, 
were  sufficient  to  make  him  as  great  a  King  as  he  could  wish 
to  be.  He  would  not  relinquish  his  own  rights  ;  but  he  would 
respect  the  rights  of  others.  He  had  formerly  risked  his  life 
in  defense  of  his  country ;  and  he  would  still  go  as  far  as  any 
man  in  support  of  her  just  liberties. 

This  speech  was  not,  like  modern  speeches  on  similar  oc- 
casions, carefully  prepared  by  the  advisers  of  the  sovereign. 
It  was  the  extemporaneous  expression  of  the  new  King's  feel- 
ings at  a  moment  of  great  excitement.  The  members  of  the 
Council  broke   forth  into    clamours  of    delight   and   gratitude. 

*  "Welwood,  139  :  Burnet,  i.  609  ;  Sheffield's  Character  of  Charles  the  Second  ; 
North's  Life  of  Guildford,  252  ;  Exanven,  648  ;  Revolution  Policies  ;  Higgonson 
Burnet.  What  North  says  of  the  embarrassment  and  vacillation  of  the  physi- 
cians is  confirmed  by  the  despatches  of  Van  Citters.  I  have  been  much  perplex- 
ed by  the  strange  story  about  Short's  suspicions.  I  was,  at  one  time,  inclined  to 
adopt  North's  solution.  But,  though  I  attach  little  weight  to  the  authority  of 
Welwood  and  Burnet  in  such  a  case,  I  cannot  reject  the  testimony  of  so  well  in- 
formed and  so  unwilling  a  witness  as  Sheffield. 


•■MTA    BARHARA.   GAUIFOWNIA 

JAMBS'   THB-^BC^OiTOV^*^—*— 

The  Lord  President,  Rochester,  iu  the  name  of  his  brethren, 
expressed  a  hope  that  His  Majesty's  most  welcome  declaration 
would  be  made  public.  The  Solicitor  General,  Heneage  Finch, 
offered  to  act  as  clerk.  He  was  a  zealous  churchman,  and,  as 
luch,  was  naturally  desirous  that  there  should  be  some  per- 
manent record  of  the  gracious  promises  which  had  just  been 
uttered.  "  Those  promises,"  he  said,  "  have  made  so  deep  an 
impression  on  me  that  I  can  repeat  them  word  for  word." 
He  soon  produced  his  report.  James  read  it,  approved  of  it, 
and  ordered  it  to  be  published.  At  a  later  period  he  said 
that  he  had  taken  this  step  without  due  consideration,  that 
his  unpremeditated  expressions  touching  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land were  too  strong,  and  that  Finch  had,  with  a  dexterity 
which  at  the  time  escaped  notice,  made  them  still  stronger.* 

•  The  King  had  been  exhausted  by  long  watching  and  by 
many  violent  emotions.  He  now  retired  to  rest.  The  Privy 
Councillors,  having  respectfully  accompanied  him  to  his  bed- 
chamber, returned  to  their  seats,  and  issued  orders  for  the 
ceremony  of  proclamation.  The  Guards  were  under  arms ; 
the  heralds  appeared  in  their  gorgeous  coats  ;  and  the  pageant 
proceeded  without  any  obstruction.  Casks  of  wine  were 
broken  up  in  the  streets,  and  all  vAio  passed  were  invited  to 
drink  to  the  health  of  the  new  sovereign.  But,  though  an 
occasional  shout  was  raised,  the  people  were  not  in  a  joyous 
mood.  Tears  were  seen  in  many  eyes  ;  and  it  was  remarked 
that  there  was  scarcely  a  housemaid  in  London  who  had  not 
contrived  to  procure  some  fragment  of  black  crape  in  honour 
of  King  Charles.f 

The  funeral  called  forth  much  censure.  It  would,  indeed, 
hardly  have  been  accounted  worthy  of  a  noble  and  opulent 
subject.  The  Tories  gently  blamed  the  new  King's  parsimony  : 
the  Whigs  sneered  at  his  want  of  natural  affection;  and  the 
fiery  Covenanters  of  Scotland  exultingly  proclaimed  that  the 
curse    denounced    of    old    against   wicked    princes    had    been 

*  London  Gazette,  Feb.  9,  1684-5  ;  Clarke's  Life  of  James  the  Second,  ii.  3  ; 
Barillon,  Feb.  9-10  ;  EvehTi's  Diary,  Feb.  C. 

1  See  the  authorities  cited  in  the  last  note.  See  also  the  Examen,  647  ;  Bup 
net,  i.  620 ;  HiggoiVi  on  Burnet,  ofi 


402  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

signally  fulfilled,  and  that  the  departed  tyrant  had  been  buried 
with  the  burial  of  an  ass.*  Yet  James  commenced  his  ad- 
ministration with  a  large  measure  of  public  good  will.  His 
speech  to  the  Council  appeared  in  print,  and  the  impression 
svhich  it  produced  was  highly  favourable  to  him.  This,  then, 
fras  the  prince  whom  a  faction  had  driven  into  exile  and  had 
tried  to  rob  of  his  birthright,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  a 
deadly  enemy  to  the  religion  and  laws  of  England.  He  had 
triumphed  :  he  was  on  the  throne ;  and  his  first  act  was  to 
declax'e  that  he  would  defend  the  Church,  and  would  strictly 
respect  the  rights  of  his  people.  The  estimate  which  all 
parties  had  formed  of  his  character,  added  weight  to  every 
word  that  fell  from  him.  The  Whigs  called  him  haughty, 
implacable,  obstinate,  regardless  of  public  opinion.  The 
Tories,  while  they  extolled  his  princely  virtues,  had  often 
Jamented  his  neglect  of  the  arts  which  conciliate  popula;rity. 
Satire  itself  had  never  represented  him  as  a  man  likely  to 
court  public  favour  by  professing  what  he  did  not  feel,  and 
by  promising  what  he  had  no  intention  of  performing.  On 
the  Sunday  which  followed  his  accession,  his  speech  was 
quoted  in  many  pulpits.  "We  have  now  for  our  Church," 
cried  one  loyal  preacher,  "  the  woi'd  of  a  King,  and  of  a  King 
who  was  never  worse  than  his  word."  Tliis  pointed  sentence 
was  fast  circulated  through  town  and  country,  and  was  soon 
the  watchword  of  the  whole  Tory  party. f 

The  great  offices  of  state  had  become  vacant  by  the  demise 
of  the  crown  ;  and  it  was  necessary  for  James  to  determine 
how  they  should  be  filled.  Few  of  the  members  of  the  late 
cabinet  had  any  reason  to  expect  his  favour.  Sunderland, 
who  was  Secretary  of  State,  and  Godolphin,  who  was  First 
Lord  of  the  Treasury,  had  supported  the  Exclusion  Bill. 
Halifax,  who  held  the  Privy  Seal,  had  opposed  that  bill  with 
unrivalled  powers  of  argument  and  eloquence.  But  Halifax 
was  the  mortal  enemy  of  despotism  and  Of  Popery.      He  saw 

*  London  Gazette,  Feb,  14,  1684-^;  Evelyn's  Diary  of  the  same  day  ;  Btirnet, 
i.  610;  The  Hind  let  looBe, 

1  Bura^t,  i.  628 ;     Jy^Btrftnge,  Obeerrator,  Feb,  U,  1684 


JAMES    THE     SECOND.  403 

with  dread!  tlie  progress  of  the  French  arms  on  the  Continent, 
and  the  influence  of  French  gold  in  the  counsels  of  England. 
Had  his  advice  been  followed,  the  laws  would  have  feeen 
strictly  observed :  clemency  would  have  been  extended  to  the 
vanquished  Whigs :  the  Parliament  would  have  been  convoked 
in  due  season :  an  attempt  woidd  have  been  made  to  recon- 
cile our  domestic  factions ;  and  the  principles  of  the  Triple 
Alliance  would  again  have  guided  our  foreign  policy.  He  had 
therefore  incurred  the  bitter  animosity  of  James.  The  Lord 
Keeper  Guildford  could  hardly  be  said  to  belong  to  either  of 
the  parties  into  which  the  court  was  divided.  He  could  by 
no  means  be  called  a  friend  of  liberty  ;  and  yet  he  had  so 
great  a  reverence  for  the  letter  of  the  law  that  he  was  not  a 
serviceable  tool  of  arbitrary  power.  He  was  accordingly  des- 
ignated by  the  vehement  Tories  as  a  Trimmer,  and  was  to 
James  an  object  of  aversion  with  which  contempt  was  largely 
mingled.  Ormond,  who  was  Lord  Steward  of  the  Household 
and  Viceroy  of  Ireland,  then  resided  at  Dublin.  His  claims 
on  the  royal  gratitude  were  superior  to  those  of  any  other 
subject.  He  had  fought  bravely  for  Charles  the  First:  he 
had  shared  the  exile  of  Charles  the  Second  ;  and,  since  the 
Restoration,  he  had,  in  spite  of  many  provocations,  kept  his 
loyalty  unstained  Though  he  had  been  disgraced  during  the 
predominance  of  the  Cabal,  he  had  never  gone  into  factious 
opposition,  and  had,  in  the  days  of  the  Popish  Plot  and  the 
Exclusion  Bill,  been  foremost  among  the  supporters  of  the 
throne.  He  was  now  old,  and  had  been  recently  tried  by  the 
most  cruel  of  all  calamities.  He  had  followed  to  the  grave 
a  son  who  should  have  been  his  own  chief  mourner,  the 
gallant  Ossory.  The  eminent  services,  the  venerable  age,  and 
the  domestic  misfortunes  of  Ormond  made  him  an  object  of 
general  interest  to  the  nation.  The  Cavaliers  regarded  him 
as,  both  by  right  of  seniority  and  by  right  of  merit,  their 
head;  and  the  Whigs  knew  that,  faithful  as  he  had  always 
been  to  the  cause  of  monarchy,  he  was  no  friend  either  to 
Popery  or  to  arbitrary  power.  But,  high  as  he  stood  in  the 
public  estimation,  he  had  little  favor  to  expect  from  his  new 


404  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

master.     James,   indeed,  while   still  a  subject,   had   urged  his 
brother  to  make  a  complete  cliauge  iu  the   Irish   admiuistra 
tion.       Charles  had  assented ;   and  it  had  been  arranged  that, 
in.  r  few  months,  there  should  be  a  new  Lord  Lieutenant.* 

Rochester  was  the  only  member  rf  the  cabinet  who  stood 
high  iu  the  favour  of  the  King.  The  general  expectation  was 
that  he  would  be  immediately  placed  at  the  head  of  affairs,  and 
that  all  the  other  great  officers  of  the  state  would  be  changed. 
This  expectation  proved  to  be  well  founded  in  part  only. 
Rochester  was  declared  Lord  Treasurer,  and  thus  became 
prime  minister.  Neither  a  Lord  High  Admiral  nor  a  Board 
of  Admiralty  was  appointed.  The  new  King,  who  loved  the 
details  of  naval  business,  and  would  have  made  a  respectable 
clerk  in  a  dockyard  at  Chatham,  determined  to  be  his  own 
minister  of  marine.  Under  him  the  management  of  that  im- 
portant department  was  confided  to  Samuel  Pepys,  whose 
library  and  diary  have  kept  his  name  fresh  to  our  time.  No 
servant  of  the  late  sovereign  was  publicly  disgraced.  Sunder- 
land exerted  so  much  art  and  address,  employed  so  many 
intercessors,  and  was  in  possession  of  so  many  secrets,  that 
he  was  suffered  to  retain  his  seals.  Godolphin's  obsequious- 
ness, industry,  experience  and  taciturnity,  could  ill  be  spared. 
As  he  was  no  longer  wanted  at  the  Treasury,  he  was  made 
Chamberlain  to  the  Queen.  With  these  three  Lords  the 
King  took  counsel  on  all  important  questions.  As  to  Halifax, 
Ormond,'  and  Guildford,  he  determined  not  yet  to  dismiss 
them,  but  merely  to  humble  and  annoy  them. 

Halifax  was  told  that  he  must  give  up  the  Privy  seal  and 
accept  the  Presidency  of  the  Council.  He  submitted  with 
extreme  reluctance.  For.  thoufjh  the  President  of  the  Council 
had  always  taken  precedence  of  the  Lord  Privy  Seal,  the 
Lord  Privy  Seal  was,  in  that  age,  a  much  more  important 
officer  than  the  Lord  President.  Rochester  had  not  forgotten 
the  jest   which    had   been    made  a  few  months  before   on   his 


*  The  letters  which  passed  between  Rochester  and  Ormond  on  this  subject 
■sdll  be  found  in  the  Clarendon  Corresi»ondence. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  405 

own  removal  from  the  Treasury,  and  enjoyed  in  his  turn 
the  pleasure  of  kicking  his  rival  up  stairs.  The  Privy  Seal 
was  delivered  to  Rochester's  elder  brother,  Henry  Earl  of 
Clarendon. 

To  Barillon  James  expressed  the  strongest  dislike  of  Halifax. 
"  I  know  him  well,  I  never  can  trust  him.  He  shall  have  no 
share  in  the  management  of  public  business.  As  to  the  place 
which  I  have  given  him,  it  will  just  serve  to  show  how  li.tle 
influence  he  has."  But  to  Halifax  it  was  thought  convenievt 
to  hold  a  very  different  language.  "  All  the  past  is  forgotten," 
said  the  King,  "  except  the  service  which  you  did  me  in  the 
debate  on  the  Exclusion  Bill."  This  speech  has  often  been 
cited  to  prove  that  James  was  not  so  vindictive  as  he  had  been 
called  by  his  enemies.  It  seems  .rather  to  prove  that  he  by 
no  means  deserved  the  praises  which  have  been  bestowed  on 
his  sincerity  by  his  friends.* 

Ormond  was  politely  informed  that  his  services  were  no 
longer  needed  in  Ireland,  and  was  invited  to  repair  to  White- 
hall, and  to  perform  the  functions  of  Lord  Steward.  He 
dutifully  submitted,  but  did  not  affect  to  deny  that  the  new 
arrangement  wounded  his  feelings  deeply.  On  the  eve  of  his 
departure  he  gave  a  magnificent  banquet  at  Kilmainham 
Hospital,  then  just  completed,  to  the  officers  of  the  garrison 
of  Dublin.  After  dinner  he  rose,  filled  a  goblet  to  the  brim 
with  wine,  and,  holding  it  up,  asked  whether  he  had  spilt  one 
drop.  "  No,  gentlemen  ;  whatever  the  courtiers  may  say,  I 
am  not  yet  sunk  into  dotage.  INIy  hand  does  not  fail  me  yet : 
and  my  hand  is  not  steadier  than  my  heart.  To  the  health 
of  King  James  !  "  Such  was  the  last  farewell  of  Ormond  to 
Ireland.  He  left  the  administration  in  the  hands  of  Lords 
Justices,  and  repaired  to  London,  where  he  was  received  with 
unusual  marks  of  public  respect.  Many  persons  of  rank  went 
forth  to  meet  him  on  the  road.  A  long  train  of  equipages 
followed  him  into  Saint  James's    Square,  where  his   mansion 

*  The  miiiistprial  oliniu-ps  are  niinouiif-e'l  i'-i  the  T  oiulon  Gazette,  Feb.  10, 1C84-  & 
See  Burnet,  i.  621 ;  Barillon,  Feb.  0-19,  ie-2C ;  and  j^;^ 


406  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

Stood ',  and  the    Square  was    thronged  by  a  multitude   which 
greeted  him  with  loud  acclamations.* 

The  Great  Seal  was  left  in  Guildford's  custody ;  but  a 
marked  indignity  was  at  the  same  time  offered  to  him.  It 
was  determined  that  another  lawyer  of  more  vigour  and  auda- 
city should  be  called  to  assist  in  the  administration.  The 
person  selected  was  Sir  George  Jeffreys,  Chief  Justice  of  the 
Court  of  King's  Bench.  The  depravity  of  this  man  has  passed 
into  a  proverb.  Both  the  great  English  parties  have  attacked 
his  memory  with  emulous  violence  :  for  the  Whigs  considered 
him  as  their  most  barbarous  enemy  ;  and  the  Tories  found  it 
convenient  to  throw  on  him  the  blame  of  all  the  crimes  which 
had  sullied  their  triumph.  A  diligent  and  candid  enquiry 
will  show  that  some  frightful  stories  which  have  been  told 
concerning  him  are  false  or  exaggerated.  Yet  the  dispas- 
sionate historian  will  be  able  to  make  very  little  deduction 
from  the  vast  mass  of  infamy  with  which  the  memory  of  the 
wicked  judge  has  been  loaded. 

He  was  a  man  of  quick  and  vigorous  parts,  but  constitu- 
■  tionally  prone  to  insolence  and  to  the  angry  passions.  When 
just  emerging  from  boyhood  he  had  risen  into  practice  at  the 
Old  Bailey  bar,  a  bar  where  advocates  have  always  used  a 
license  of  tongue  unknown  in  Westminster  Hall.  Here, 
during  many  years  his  chief  business  was  to  examine  and 
crossexamine  the  most  hardened  miscreants  of  a  great  capital. 
Daily  conflicts  with  prostitutes  and  thieves  called  out  and 
exercised  his  powers  so  effectually  that  he  became  the  most 
consummate  bully  ever  known  in  his  profession.  Tenderness 
for  others  and  respect  for  himself  were  feelings  alike  unknown 
to  him.  He  acquired  a  boundless  command  of  the  rhetoric 
in  which  the  vulgar  express  hatred  and  contempt.  The  pro- 
fusion of  maledictions  and  vituperative  epithets  which  com- 
posed his  vocabulary  could  hardly  have  been  rivalled  in  the 
fishmarket  or  the  beargarden.  His  countenance  and  his  voice 
must  always  have  been  unamiable.     But  these   natural  advan- 

*  Carte's  Life  of  Ormond  ;  Secret  Consults  of  the  Romish  Paxty  in  Ireland, 
1690 ;  Memoirs  of  Ireland,  1716. 


JAMES    TniC    SECOND.  407 

tages, for   such   lie   seems    to   have   thought  them, — he  had 

improved  to  such  a  degree  that  there  were  few  who,  in  his 
paroxysms  of  rage,  could  see  or  hear  him  without  emotion. 
Impudence  and  ferocity  sate  upon  his  brow.  The  glare  of  hia 
eyes  had  a  fascination  for  the  unhappy  victim  on  whom  they 
were  fixed.  Yet  his  brow  and  his  eye  were  less  terrible  than 
the  savage  lines  of  his  mouth.  His  yell  of  fury,  as  was  said 
by  one  who  had  often  heard  it,  sounded  like  the  thunder  of 
the  judgment  day.  These  qualifications  he  carried,  while  still 
a  young  man,  from  the  bar  to  the  bench.  He  early  became 
Common  Serjeant,  and  then  Recorder  of  London.  As  a  judge 
at  the  City  sessions  he  exhibited  the  same  propensities  which 
afterwards,  in  a  higher  post,  gained  for  him  an  unenviable 
immortality.  Already  might  be  remarked  in  him  the  most 
odious  vice  which  is  incident  to  human  nature,  a  delight  in 
misery  merely  as  misery.  There  was  a  fiendish  exultation  in 
the  way  in  which  he  pronounced  sentence  on  offenders.  Their 
weeping  and  imploring  seemed  to  titillate  him  voluptuously; 
and  he  loved  to  scare  them  into  fits  by  dilating  with  luxuriant 
amplification  on  all  the  details  of  what  they  were  to  suffer. 
Thus,  when  he  had  an  opportunity  of  ordering  an  unlucky 
adventuress  to  be  whipped  at  the  cart's  tail,  "  Hangman,"  he 
would  exclaim,  "  I  charge  you  to  pay  particular  attention  to 
this  lady !  Scourge  her  soundly,  man  !  Scourge  her  till  the 
blood  runs  down  !  It  is  Christmas,  a  cold  time  for  Madam  to 
strip  iu  !  See  that  you  warm  her  shoulders  thoroughly  1  "  * 
He  was  hardly  less  facetious  when  he  passed  judgment  on 
poor  Lodowick  Muggleton,  the  drunken  tailor  who  fancied 
himself  a  prophet.  "  Impudent  rogue  ! "  roared  Jeffreys, 
"  thou  shalt  have  an  easy,  easy,  easy  punishment ! "  One 
part  of  this  easy  punishment  was  the  pillory,  in  which  the 
wretched  fanatic  was  almost  killed  with  brickbats. f 

By  this  time  the  heart  of   Jeffreys  had  been  hardened  to 

*  Christmas  Sessions  Paper  of  1678. 

t  The  Acts  of  the  Witnesses  of  the  Spirit,  part  v-  chapter  v.  In  this  work  Lod- 
owick, after  his  fashion,  revenges  himself  on  the  "  bawling  devil,"  as  he  calls 
.TeffroyB,  by  a  string  of  curses  which  Ernulplxus,  or  Jeffrej^s  hin^gfi*,  might  b»v» 
«pyie4.    The  triaj  ww  In  Jftnujuy,  J677t 


408  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

that  temper  which  tyrants  require  in  their  worst  implements. 
He  had  hitherto  looked  for  professional  advancement  to  the 
corporation  of  London.  He  had  therefore  professed  himself 
a  Roundhead,  and  had  always  appeared  to  be  in  a  higher  state 
of  exhilaration  when  he  explained  to  Popish  priests  that  they 
were  to  be  cut  down  alive,  and  wei-e  to  see  their  own  bowels 
burned,  than  when  he  passed  ordinary  sentences  of  death. 
But,  as  soon  as  he  had  got  all  that  the  city  could  give,  he 
made  haste  to  sell  his  forehead  of  brass  and  his  tongue  of 
venom  to  the  Court.  ChifRnch,  who  was  accustomed  to  act 
as  broker  in  infamous  contracts  of  more  than  one  kind,  lent 
his  aid.  He  had  conducted  many  amorous  and  many  political 
intrigues ;  but  he  assuredly  never  rendered  a  more  scandalous 
service  to  his  masters  than  when  he  introduced  Jeffreys  to 
Whitehall.  The  renegade  soon  found  a  patron  in  the  ob- 
durate and  revengeful  James,  but  was  always  regarded  with 
scorn  and  disgust  by  Charles,  whose  faults,  great  as  they 
were,  had  no  affijiity  with  insolence  and  cruelty.  "  That 
man,"  said  the  King,  "  has  no  learning,  no  sense,  no  manners, 
and  more  impudence  than  ten  carted  street-walkers."  *  Work 
was  to  be  done,  however,  which  could  be  trusted  to  no  man 
who  reverenced  law  or  was  sensible  of  shame ;  and  thus 
Jeffreys,  at  an  age  at  which  a  barrister  thinks  himself  fortu- 
nate if  he  is  employed  to  conduct  an  important  cause,  was 
made  Chief  Justice  of  the  King^s  Bench. 

His  enemies  could  not  deny  that  he  possessed  some  of  the 
qualities  of  a  great  judge.  His  legal  knowledge,  indeed,  was 
merely  such  as  he  had  picked  up  in  practice  of  no  very  high 
kind.  But  he  had  one  of  those  happily  constituted  intellects 
which,  across  labyrmths  of  sophistry,  and  through  masses  of 
immaterial  facts,  go  straight  to  the  true  point.  Of  his  intel- 
lect, however,  he  seldom  had  the  full  use.  Even  in  civil 
causes  his  malevolent  and  despotic  temper  perpetually  diS' 
ordered  his  judgment.  To  enter  his  court  was  to  enter  the 
den    of   a  wild  beast,  which    none    could   tame,  and  which  was 

♦  This  saying  is  to  be  found  in  many  contemporary  pamphlets.  Titus  Oates 
was  never  tirbd  oi'  quoting  it.     See  his  EIimv  BaailiKfj. 


JAMKS  'THE    SECOND.  409 

as  likely  to  be  roused  to  rage  by  caresses  as  by  attacks.     He 
frequently  poured  forth  on  plaintiffs  and  defendants,' barristers 
and    attorneys,    witnesses    and    jurymen,    torrents    of    frantic 
abuse,  intermixed  with  oaths   and  curses-      His  looks  and   tones 
had  inspired   terror   when   he   was    merely  a  young   advocate 
strusfirlinir   into   practice.     Now  that    he  was  at   the    head  of 
the  most    formidable   tribunal   in   the  realm,    there  were    few 
indeed  who  did  not   tremble  before   him.     Even   when  he  was 
sober,  his    violence   was   sufficiently  frightful.     But  in  general 
his  reason    was   overclouded  and  his   evil   passions    stimulated 
by  the  fumes    of  intoxication.     His   evenings  were   ordinarily 
given  to   revelry.     People  who  saw   him  only  over   his    bottle 
would   have  supposed  him  to   be  a  man  gross   indeed,  sottish, 
and   addicted  to   low  company  and   low   merriment,  but  social 
and    ffoodhumoured.     He  was    constantly    surrounded  on    such 
occasions   by  buffoons  selected,  for   the  most  part,  from   among 
the  vilest   pettifoggers   who  practised  before  him.     These  men 
bantered    and   abused   each   other   for   his  entertainment.     He 
joined    in    their    ribald    talk,    sang    catches    with    them,  and, 
when  his  head  grew  hot,  hugged  and  kissed  them  in  an   ecstasy 
of  drunken  fondness.       But    though   wine   at  first    seemed   to 
soften  his  heart,  tho  effect  a    few  hours  later  was  very  different. 
He   often   came   to  the  judgment  seat,  having  kept  the   court 
waiting  long,  and  yet  having   but   half   slept  off   his  debauch, 
his   cheeks  on  fire,  his  eyes    staring   like  those  of  a  maniac. 
When   he   was   in  this  state,  his   boon  companions  of  the   pre- 
ceding  niglit,  if  they  were   wise,  kept  out  of  his  way :  for  the 
'  recollection  of  the   familiarity  to  which  he  had   admitted  them 
inflamed  his  malignity ;  and  he  was  sure   to  take  every  oppor^ 
tunity  of    overwhelming  them  with   execration  and    invective. 
Not  the   least  odious  of  his  many  odious  peculiarities  was  the 
pleasure  which  he    took  in   publicly  browbeating  and  mortify- 
ing  those  whom,  in    his  fits   of    maudlin    tenderness,   he   had 
encouraged  to  presume  on  his  favour. 

The  services  which  the  government  had  expected  from  him 
were  performed,  not  merely  without  flinching,  but  eagerly 
)»nd  triumphantly.     His  first  exploit  was  the  judicial  murder 


410  HISTORY    OP   ENGLAND. 

of  Algernon  Sidney.  What  followed  was  in  perfect  harmony 
with  this  beginning.  Respectable  Tories  lamented  the  dis- 
grace which  the  barbarity  and  indecency  of  so  great  a  func- 
tionary brought  upon  the  administration  of  justice.  But  the 
excesses  which  filled  such  men  with  horror  were  titles  to  the 
esteem  of  James.  Jeffreys,  therefore,  very  soon  after  the  death 
of  Charles,  obtained  a  seat  in  the  cabinet  and  a  peerage.  This 
last  honour  was  a  signal  mark  of  royal  approbation.  For, 
since  the  judicial  system  of  the  realm  had  been  remodelled  in 
the  thirteenth  century,  no  Chief  Justice  had  been  a  Lord  of 
Parliament.* 

Guildford  now  found  himself  superseded  in  all  his  political 
functions,  and  restricted  to  his  busioess  as  a  judge  in  equity- 
At  Council  he  was  treated  by  Jeffreys  with  marked  incivility. 
The  whole  legal  patronage  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Chief 
Justice  ;  and  it  was  well  known  by  the  bar  that  the  surest 
wav  to  propitiate  the  Chief  Justice  was  to  treat  the  Lord 
Keeper  with  disrespect. 

James  had  not  been  many  hours  King  when  a  dispute  arose 
between  the  two  heads  of  the  law.  The  customs  had  been 
settled  on  Charles  for  life  only,  and  could  not  therefore  be 
legally  exacted  by  the  new  sovereign.  Some  weeks  must 
elapse  before  a  House  of  Commons  could  be  chosen.  If,  in 
the  meantime,  the  duties  were  suspended,  the  revenue  would 
suffer  ;  the  regular  course  of  trade  would  be  interrupted  ;  the 
consumer  would  derive  no  benefit ;  and  the  only  gainers  would 
be  those  fortunate  speculators  whose  cargoes  might  hajipen  to 
arrive  during  the  interval  between  the  demise  of  the  crown 
and  the  meeting  of  the  Parliament.  The  Treasury  was  be- 
sieged by  merchants  whose  warehouses  were  filled  with  goods 
on  which  duty  had  been  paid,  and  who  were  in  grievous  ap- 

*  The  chief  sources  of  Information  concerning  Jeffreys  are  the  State  Trials 
and  North's  Life  of  Lord  Guildford.  Some  touches  of  minor  importance  I  owe 
to  contemporary  pamphlets  in  verse  and  prose.  Such  are  the  Bloody  Assizes, 
the  Life  and  Death  of  George  Lord  Jeffreys,  the  Panegj-ric  on  the  late  Lord 
Jcllreys,  the  Letter  to  the  Lord  Chancellor,  Jeffreys's  Elegy.  See  also  Evelyn'8 
Diary,  Dec.  5,  1683,  Oct.  31,  1685.  I  scarcely  need  advise  every  reader  to  couBult 
Lord  Campbell's  excellent  Life  of  Jeffreys. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  411 

prehension  of  being  undersold  and  ruined.  Impartial  men 
must  admit  that  this  was  one  of  those  cases  in  which  a 
government  may  be  justified  in  deviating  from  the  strictly 
constitutional  course.  But  when  it  is  necessary  to  deviate  from 
the  strictly  constitutional  course,  the  deviation  clearly  ought 
to  be  no  greater  than  the  necessity  requires.  Guildford  felt 
this,  and  gave  advice  which  did  him  honour.  He  proposed 
that  the  duties  should  be  levied,  but  should  be  kept  in  the 
Exchequer  apart  from  other  sums  till  the  Parliament  should 
meet.  In  this  way  the  King,  while  violating  the  letter  of  the 
laws,  would  show  that  he  wished  to  conform  to  their  spirit. 
Jeffreys  gave  very  different  counsel.  He  advised  James  to 
put  forth  an  edict  declaring  it  to  be  His  Majesty's  will  and 
pleasure  that  the  customs  should  continue  to  be  paid.  This 
advice  was  well  suited  to  the  King's  temper.  The  judicious 
proposition  of  the  Lord  Keeper  was  rejected  as  worthy  only 
of  a  Whig,  or  of  what  was  still  worse,  a  Trimmer.  A  procla- 
mation, such  as  the  Chief  Justice  had  suggested,  appeared. 
Some  people  had  expected  that  a  violent  outbreak  of  public  indig- 
nation would  be  the  consequence ;  but  they  were  deceived. 
The  spirit  of  opposition  had  not  yet  revived  ;  and  the  court 
might  safely  venture  to  take  steps  which,  five  years  before, 
would  have  produced  a  rebellion.  In  the  City  of  London, 
lately  so  turbulent,  scarcely  a  murmur  was  heard.* 

The  proclamation,  which  announced  that  the  customs 
Would  still  be  levied,  announced  also  that  a  Parliament  would 
shortly  meet.  It  was  not  without  many  misgivings  that 
James  had  determined  to  call  the  Estates  of  his  realm  together. 
The  moment  was,  indeed,  most  auspicious  for  a  general  election. 
Never  since  the  accession  of  the  House  of  Stuart  had  the  con- 
stituent bodies  been  so  favourably  disposed  towards  the  Court. 
But  the  new  sovereign's  mind  was  haunted  by  an  apprehension 
not  to  be  mentioned  even  at  this  distance  of  time,  without 
shame  and  indignation.  He  was  afraid  that  by  summoning  his 
Parliament  he  might  incur  the  displeasure  of  the  King  of 
France. 

*  London  Gazette,  Feb.  12,  1684-6.  North's  Life  of  Guildford,  254, 


412  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

To  the  King  of  France  it  mattered  little  which  of  the  two 
English  factions  triumphed  at  the  elections :  for  all  the 
Paj-liaments  wliich  had  met  since  the  Restoration,  whatever 
might  have  been  their  temper  as  to  domestic  politics,  had  been 
jealous  of  the  growing  power  of  "the  House  of  Bourbon.  On 
this  sul)ject  thei'e  was  little  difference  between  the  Whigs  and 
th^  sturdy  country  gentlemen  who;  formed  the  main  strength 
of  the  Tory  party.  Lewis  had  th-d'efore  spared  neither  bribes 
nor  menaces  to  .jorevent  Charles  from  convoking  the  Houses; 
and  Jam*es.,  who.  had:  from  the:  first  been  in  .  the-feecret  of  his 
brother's  foreign  politics,  had,  iini  becoming  King  of  Englfaid, 
become  also  a  hireling  and  vassal  of  France. 

Rochester,  Godolphin,  and  Sunderland,  who  now  formed 
the  interior  cabinet,  were  perfectly  aware  that  their  late 
master  had  been  in  the  habit  of  receiving  money  from  the 
court  of  Versailles.  They  were  consulted  by  James  as  to  the 
expediency  of  convoking  the  legislature.  They  acknowledged 
the:  importance  of -keeping  Lewis  in  good  humour:  but  it 
seemed  to  them  that  the  calling  of  a  Parliament  was  not  a 
matter  of  choice,  '.-.  Patient  as.  the  nation  appeared  to  be, 
there  were  limits  to  its  patience.  The  principle,  that  the 
money  of  the  subject  could  not  be,  lawfully  taken  by  the  King 
without  the  assent  of  the  Commons,  was  firmly  rooted  in  the 
public  mind;  and  though,  on.,  an  exti'aordinary  emergency 
even  Whigs  might  be  willing  to  pay,  during  a  few  weeks, 
duties  not  imposed  by  statute,  it  was  certain  that  even  Tories 
would  become  refractory  if  such  irregular  taxation  should 
continue  longer  than  the  speqial.  circumstances  which  alone 
justified  it.  The  Houses  then  must  meet ;  and  since  it  was 
so,  the  sooner  they  wei-e  summoned  the  better.  Even  the 
short  delay  which  would  be  occasioned  by  a  reference  to 
Versailles  might  produce  irreparable  mischief.  Discontent 
and  suspicion  would  spread  fast  through  society.  Halifax 
would  complain  that  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  con- 
stitution were  violated.  The  Lord  Keeper,  like  a  cowardly 
pedantic  special  pleader  as  he  was,  would  take  the  same  side. 
What  might  have  been  done  with  a  good  grace  would  at  last 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  4.1: j 

be  done  with  a  bad  grace.  Tliose  veiy  ministers  whom  His 
Majesty  most  wished  to  lower  in  the  imblic  estimation  woul<l 
gain  popularity  at  his  expense.  The  ill  temper  of  the  nation 
mio-ht  seriously  affect  the  result  of  the  elections.  Tiiese 
arguments  were  unanswerable.  The  Kinsj  therefore  notitisd 
to  the  country  his  intention  of  holding  a  Parliament.  But 
he  was  painfully  ansious  to  exculpate  himself  from  the  guilt 
of  having  acted  undutifully  and  disrespectfully  towards 
Prance.  He  led  Barillon  into  a  private  room,  and  there 
apologised  for  having  dared  to  take  so  important  a  step  with- 
out the  previous  sanction  of  Lewis.  "Assure  your  toaster/' 
said  James,  "  of  my  gratitude  and  attachment.  I  know  that 
without  his  protection  I  can  do  nothing.  I  know  what 
troubles  my  brother  brought  on  himself  by  not  adhering 
steadily  to  France.  I  will  take  good  care  not  to  let  the 
Houses  meddle  with  ioreign  affairs.  If  I  see  ia'them  any 
disposition  to  make  mischief,  I  will  send  them  ^.bout  their 
business.  Explain  this  to  my  good  brother.  I  hope  tha( 
he  will  not  take  it  amiss  that  I  have  acted  without  con 
sultiug  him.  He  has  a  right  to  be.  consulted;  and  It  is  my 
wish  to  consult  him  about  everything.  But  in  this  case  the 
delay  even  of  a  week  might  have  produced  serious  conse- 
quences." 

These  ignominious  excuses  were,  on  the  following  morn- 
ing, rej>eated  by  Rochester.  Barillon  received  them  civilly 
Rochester,  grown  bolder,  proceeded  to  ask  for  money  "  It 
will  be  well  laid  out,"  he  said :  "  j^our  master  cannot  employ 
his  revenues  better.  Represent  to  him  strongly  how  im- 
portant it  is  that  the  King  of  England  should  be  dependent, 
not  on  his  own  people,  but  on  the  friendship  of  France 
alone."  * 

Barillon  hastened  to  communicate  to  Lewis  the  wishes  of 
the  English  government ;  but  Lewis  had  already  anticipated 
them.      His  first  act,  after  he  was  apprised  of  the  death  of 

•  The  chief  authority  for  these  transaetions  ia  Barillon 's  despatch  of  Febra- 
nry  0-19,  lfiS5.  It  will  be  fonnd  in  the  Appendix  to  Mr.  Fox's  History.  See  also 
Preston's  Letter  to  James,  dated  April  18-28, 1685,  in  Dalrymple, 


414  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Chaiies,  was  to  collect  bills  of  exchange  on  England  to  tliG 
amount  of  five  hundred  thousand  livres,  a  sum  equivalent  to 
about  thirty-seven  thousand  five  hundred  pounds  sterling. 
Such  bills  were  not  then  to  be  easily  procured  in  Paris  at  a 
day's  notice.  In  .  a  few  hours,  however,  the  purchase  was 
effected,  and  a  courier  started  for  London.*  As  soon  as 
Barillon  received  the  remittance,  he  flew  to  Whitehall,  and 
communicated  the  welcome  news.  James  was  not  ashamed 
to  shed,  or  pretend  to  shed,  tears  of  delight  and  gratitude. 
*'  Nobody  but  your  King,"  he  said,  "  does  such  kind,  such 
noble  things.  I  never  can  be  grateful  enough.  Assure  him 
that  my  attachment  will  last  to  the  end  of  my  days."  Ro- 
chester, Sunderland,  and  Godolphin  came,  one  after  another, 
to  embrace  the  ambassador,  and  to  whisper  to  him  that  he 
had  given  new  life  to  their  royal  master.f 

But  though  James  and  his  three  advisers  were  pleased 
with  the  promptitude  which  Lewis  had  shown,  they  were  by 
no  means  satisfied  with  the  amount  of  the  donation.  As 
they  were  afraid,  however,  that  they  might  give  offence  by 
importunate  mendicancy,  they  merely  hinted  their  wishes. 
They  declared  that  they  had  no  intention  of  haggling  with 
so  generous  a  benefactor  as  the  French  King,  and  that  they 
were  willing  to  trust  entirely  to  his  munificence.  They,  at 
the  same  time,  attempted  to  propitiate  him  by  a  large  sacri- 
fice of  national  honour.  It  was  well  known  that  one  chief 
end  of  his  politics  was  to  add  the  Belgian  provinces  to  his 
dominions.  Erigland  was  bound  by  a  treaty  which  had  been 
concluded  with  Spain  when  Danby  was  Lord  Treasurer,  to 
resist  any  attempt  which  France  might  make  on  those  prov- 
inces. The  three  ministers  informed  Barillon  that  their 
master  considered  that  treaty  as  no  longer  obligatory.  It 
had  been  made,  they  said,  by  Charles :  it  might,  perhaps, 
hare  been  binding  on  him ;  but  his  brother  did  not  think 
himself    bound    by   it.      The    most    Christian   King    tuigbti 

•  Lewis  to  Barillon,  Feb.  16- 2C,  1685- 
t  Barillon,  Feb.  16-26, 16S5. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  415 

i!ierefore,  without  any  fear  of  opposition  from  England,  pro- 
ceed to  annex  Brabant  and  Hainault  to  his  empire.* 

It  was  at  the  same  time  resolved  that  an  extraordinary 
embassy  should  be  sent  to  assure  Lewis  of  the  gratitude  and 
affection  of  James.  For  this  mission  was  selected  a  man 
who  did  not  as  yet  occupy  a  very  eminent  position,  but  whose 
renown,  strangely  made  up  of  infamy  and  glory,  filled  at  a 
later  period  the  whole  civilized  world. 

Soon  after  the  Restoration,  in  the  gay  and  dissolute  times 
which  have  been  celebrated  by  the  lively  pen  of  Hamilton, 
James,  young  and  ardent  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure,  had  been 
attracted  to  Arabella  Churchill,  one  of  the  maids  of  honour 
who  waited  on  his  first  wife.  The  young  lady  was  plain:' 
but  the  taste  of  James  was  not  nice :  and  she  became  his 
avowed  mistress.  She  was  the  daughter  of  a  poor  Cavalier 
knight  who  haunted  Whitehall,  and  made  himself  ridiculous 
by  publishing  a  dull  and  affected  folio,  long  forgotten,  in 
praise  of  monarchy  and  monarchs.  The  necessities  of  the 
Churchills  were  pressing;  their  loyalty  was  ardent;  and 
their  only  feeling  about  Arabella's  seduction  seems  to  have 
been  joyful  surprise  that  so  homely  a  girl  should  have  attained 
Buch  high  preferment. 

Her  interest  was  indeed  of  great  use  to  her  relations  :  but 
none  of  them  was  so  fortunate  as  her  eldest  brother  John,  a 
fine  youth,  who  carried  a  pair  of  colours  in  the  foot  guards. 
He  rose  fast  in  the  court  and  in  the  army,  and  was  early  dis- 
tinguished as  a  man  of  fashion  and .  of  pleasure.  His  stature 
was  commanding,  his  face  handsome,  his  address  singularly 
winning,  yet  of  such  dignity  that  the  most  impertinent  fops 
never  ventured  to  take  any  liberty  with  him  ;  his  temper, 
even  in  the  most  vexatious  and  irritating  circumstances, 
always  under  perfect  command.  His  education  had  been  so 
much  neglected  that  he  could  not  spell  the  most  common 
words  of  his  own  language :  but  his  acute  and  vigorous 
understanding    amply   supplied  the    place   of   book    learning. 

•  Bullion,  Feb.  18-28,  I68& 


416  HISTORY   OP  EWGLAWO. 

He  was  not  talkative  :  but  when  he  was  forced  to  speak  in 
public,  his  natural  eloquence  moved  the  envy  of  practised 
rhetoricians.*  His  courage  was  singularly  cool  and  imper- 
turbable. During  many  years  of  anxiety  and  peril,  he  never, 
in  any  emergency,  lost  even  for  a  moment,  the  perfect  use  oi 
his  admirable  judgment. 

In  his  twenty-third  year  he  was  sent  with  his  regiment  to 
join  the  French  forces,  then  engaged  in  operations  against 
Holland.  His  serene  intrepidity  distinguished  him  among 
thousands  of  brave  soldiers.  His  professional  skill  com- 
manded the  resjject  of  veteran  officers.  He  was  publicly 
thanked  at  the  head  of  the  army,  and  received  many  marks 
of  esteem  and  confidence  from  Turenne,  who  was  then  at  the 
height  of  military  glory. 

Unhappily  the  splendid  qualities  of  John  Churchill  wero 
mingled  with  alloy  of  the  "most  sordid  kind.  Some  propen- 
sities, which  in  youth  are  singularly  ungraceful,  began  very 
early  to  show  themselves  in  him.  He  was  thrifty  in  his  very 
vices,  and  levied  ample  contributions  on  ladies  enriched  by 
the  spoils  of  more  liberal  lovers.  He  was,  during  a  short 
time,  the  object  of  the  violent  but  fickle  fondness  of  the 
Duchess  of  Cleveland.  On  one  occasion  he  was  cauffht  with 
her  by  the  King,  and  was  forced  to  leap  out  of  the  window. 
She  rewarded  this  hazardous  feat  of  gallantry  with  a  present 
-^f  five  thousand  pounds.  With  this  sum  the  prudent  young 
hero  instantly  bought  an  annuity  of  five  hundred  a  year, 
well  secured  on  landed  property.f  Already  his  private 
drawer   contained  a  hoard  of  broad  pieces  which,  fifty  years 

*  Swift  who  bated  Marlborough,  and  who  was  little  disposed  to  allow  any 
merit  to  those  whom  he  hated,  says,  iu  the  famous  letter  to  Crassus,  "  You  are 
no  ill  •  orator  in  the  Senate." 

T  Dartmouth's  note  on  Burnet,  i.  264.  Chesterfield's  Letters,  Nov,  18,  7748. 
Chesterfield  is  an  unexceptional  witness  ;  for  the  annuity  was  a  charge  on  the 
estate  of  his  grandfather,  Halifax.  I  believe  that  there  is  no  foundation  for» 
disgraceful  addition  to  the  story  which  may  be  found  in  Pope  : 

"  The  gallant  too,  to  whom  she  paid  it  dpwn. 
Lived  to  refuse  liis  mistress  half  a  crown."  .. 

Curll  calls  this  a  piece  of  travelling  scaoidal. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  417 

later,  when  he  was  a  Duke,  a  Prince   of   the  Empire,  and  the 
richest  subject  in  Europe,  remained  untouched.* 

After  the  close  of  the  war  he  was  attached  to  the  house- 
hold of  the  Duke  of  York,  accompanied  his  patron  to  the 
Low  Countries  and  to  Edinburgh,  and  was  rewarded  for  his 
services  with  a  Scotch  peerage  and  with  the  command  of  the 
only  regiment  of  dragoons  which  was  then  on  the  English 
establishment.!  His  wife  had  a  post  in  the  family  of  James's 
younger  daughter,  the  Princess  of  Denmark. 

Lord  Churchill  was  now  sent  as  ambassador  extraordinary 
to  Versailles.  He  had  it  in  charge  to  express  the  warm 
gratitude  of  the  English  government  for  the  money  which 
had  been  so  generously  bestowed.  It  had  been  originally 
intended  that  he  should  at  the  same  time  ask  Lewis  for  a 
much  larger  sum  ;  but,  on  full  consideration,  it  was  appre- 
hended that  such  indelicate  greediness  might  disgust  the  bene- 
factor whose  spontaneous  liberality  had  been  so  signallj 
displayed.  Churchill  was  therefore  directed  to  confine  himself 
to  thanks  for  what  was  past,  and  to  say  nothing  about  the 
future.  J 

But  James  and  his  ministers,  even  while  protesting  that  they 
did  not  mean  to  be  importunate,  contrived  to  hint,  very  intelli- 
gibly, what  they  wished  and  exoected.  In  the  French  ambassador 
they  had  a  dexterous,  a  zealous,  and,  perhaps,  not  a  disinterested 
intercessor.  Lewis  made  some  difficulties,  probably  with  the 
design  of  enhancing  the  value  of  his  gifts.  In  a  very  few  weeks, 
however,  Barillon  received  from  Versailles  fifteen  hundred  thou- 
sand livres  more.  This  sum,  equivalent  to  about  a  hundred 
and  twelve  thousand  pounds  sterling,  he  was  instructed  to   dole 

*  Pope  in  Spence's  Anecdotes. 

t  See  the  Historical  Records  of  the  first  or  Royal  Dra5;oons.  The  appoint- 
ment of  Churchill  to  the  command  of  this  regiment  was  ridiculed  as  an  instance 
of  ahsurd  partiality.  One  lampoon  of  that  lime,  which  T  do  not  remember  to 
have  seen  in  print,  but  of  which  a  manuscript  copy  is  in  the  British  Museum, 
contains  these  lines  ■ 

"  Let's  CMt  our  iner't  with  snoons  ; 
The  sense  is  as  ^ood 
As  that  Churchill  should 
Be  put  to  command  the  drasoons." 

t  Barillon,  Feb.  16-26, 1685. 

2i 


418  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND.  v 

out  cautiously.  He  was  authorised  to  furnish  the  English  gov- 
ernmeut  with  thirty  thousand  pounds,  for  the  purpose  of 
corrupting  members  of  the  New  House  of  Commons.  The  rest  he 
was  directed  to  keep  in  reserve  for  some  extraordinary  emer- 
gency, such  as  a  dissolution  or  an  insurrection.* 

The  turpitude  of  these  transactions  is  universally  acknowl- 
edged: but  their  real  nature  seems  to  be  often  misunderstood  : 
for  though  the  foreign  policy  of  tlie  last  two  Kings  of  the 
House  of  Stuart  has  never,  since  the  correspondence  of 
Barillon  was  exposed  to  the  public  eye,  found  an  apologist 
among  us,  there  is  still  a  party  which  labours  to  excuse  their 
domestic  policy.  Yet  it  is  certain  that  between  their  domestic 
policy  and  their  foreign  policy  there  was  a  necessary  and 
indissoluble  connection.  If  they  had  upheld,  during  a  single 
year,  the  honour  of  the  country  abroad,  they  would  have  been 
compelled  to  change  the  whole  system  of  their  administration 
at  home.  To  praise  them  for  refusing  to  govern  in  conformity 
with  the  sense  of  Parliament,  and  yet  to  blame  them  for  sub- 
mitting to  the  dictation  of  Lewis,  is  inconsistent.  For  they 
had  only  one  choice,  to  be  dependent  on  Lewis,  or  to  be  de- 
pendent on  Parliament. 

James,  to  do  him  justice,  would  gladly  have  found  out  a 
third  way  .  but  there  was  none.  He  became  the  slave  of 
France :  but  it  would  be  incorrect  to  represent  him  as  a  con- 
tented slave.  He  had  spirit  enough. to  be  at  times  angry  with 
himself  for  submitting  to  such  thraldom,  and  impatient  to 
break  loose  from  it ;  and  this  disposition  was  studiously'  en- 
couraged by  the  agents  of  many  foreign  powers. 

His  accession  had  excited  hopes  and  fears  in  every  conti- 
nental court  :  and  the  commencement  of  his  administration  was 
watched  by  strangers  with  interest  scarcely  less  deep  than  that 
which  was  felt  by  his  own  subjects.  One  government  alone 
wished  that  the  troubles  which  had,  during  three  generations, 
distracted  England,  might  be  eternal.  All  other  governments, 
whether    republican    or    monarchical,   whether    Protestant   or 

*  Barillon,  April  6-26  ;  Lewis  to  Barillon,  April  14-24. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  419 

Roman  Catholic,  wished  to  see    those  troubles  hapj^ily  termi- 
nated. 

The  nature  of  the  long  contest  between  the  Stuarts  and  their 
Parliaments  was  indeed  very  imperfectly  apprehended  by  for- 
eign statesmen :  but  no  statesman  could  fail  to  perceive  the  ef- 
fect whicli  that  contest  liad  produced  on  the  balance  of  power  in 
Europe.  In  ordinary  circumstances,  the  sympathies  of  the  courts 
of  Vienna  and  Madrid  would  doubtless  have  been  with  a  prince 
struggling  against  subjects,' and  especially  with  a  Roman  Catholic 
prince  struggling  against  heretical  subjects  :  but  all  such  sympa- 
thies wer J  now  overpowered  by  a  stronger  feeling.  The  fear 
and  hatred  inspired  by  the  greatness,  the  injustice,  and  the  arro- 
gance of  the  French  King  were  at  the  height.  His  neighbours 
might  well  doubt  whether  it  were  more  dangerous  to  be  at  wai 
or  at  peace  with  him.  For  in  peace  he  continued  to  plunder  and 
to  outrage  them ;  and  they  had  tried  the  chances  of  war  agamst 
him  in  vain.  In  this  perplexity  they  looked  with  intense  anxiety 
towards  England.  Would  she  act  on  the  principles  of  the  Triple 
Alliance  or  on  the  principles  of  the  treaty  of  Dover  ?  On  that 
issue  depended  the  fate  of  all  her  neighbouis.  With  her  help 
Lewis  might  yet  be  withstood  :  but  no  help  could  be  expected 
from  her  till  she  was  at  unity  with  herself.  Before  the  strife 
between  the  throne  and  the  Parliament  began,  she  had  been  a 
power  of  the  first  rank  :  on  the  day  on  which  that  strife  terminated 
she  became  a  power  of  the  first  rank  again  :  but  while  the  dis- 
pute remained  undecided,  she  was  condemned  to  inaction  and  to 
vassalage.  She  had  been  great  under  the  Plantagenets  and  Tudors: 
she  was  again  gre  it  un  ler  the  princes  who  reigned  after  the 
Revolution  :  but,  under  the  Kin^s  of  the  House  of  Stuart,  she 
was  a  blank  in  the  map  of  Europe.  She  had  lost  one  class  of 
energies,  and  had  not  yet  acquired  another.  That  species  of 
force,  which,  in  the  fourteenth  century  had  enabled  her  to  hum- 
ble France  and  Spain,  had  ceased  to  exist.  That  species  of  fo^-ce, 
which,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  humbled  France  and  Spain 
once  more,  had  not  yet  been  called  into  action.  The  government 
was  no  longer  a  limited  monarchy  after  the  fashion  of  the  middle 
ages.     It    had  not  yet  become   a  limited  monarchy  after  the 


420  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

modern  tashion.  With  the  vices  of  two  different  systems  it  had 
the  strength  of  neither.  The  elements  of  our  polity,  instead  of 
combining  in  harmony,*counteracted  and  neutralised  each  other. 
All  was  transition,  conflict,  and  disorder.  The  chief  business  of 
the  sovereign  was  to  infringe  the  privileges  of  the  legislature. 
The  chief  business  of  the  legislature  was  to  encroach  on  the  pre- 
rogatives of  the  sovereign.  The  King  readily  accepted  foreign 
aid,  which  relieved  him  from  the  misery  of  being  dependent 
on  a  mutinous  Pai'liament.  The  Parliament  refused  to  the  Kiuff 
the  means  of  supporting  the  national  honor  abroad,  from  an 
apprehension,  too  well  founded,  that  those  means  might  be 
employed  in  order  to  establish  despotism  at  home.  The  effect 
of  these  jealousies  was  that  our  country,  with  all  her  vast  re- 
sources, was  of  as  little  weight  in  Christendom  as  the  duchy  of 
Savoy  or  the  duchy  of  Lorraine,  and  certainly  of  far  less  weight 
than  the  small  province  of  Holland. 

France  was  deeply  interested  in  prolonging  this  state  of 
things.*  All  other  powers  were  deeply  interested  in  bringing 
it  to  a  close.  The  general  wish  of  Europe  was  that  James 
would  govern  in  conformity  with  law  and  with  public  opinion. 
From  the  Escurial  itself  came  letters,  expressing  an  earnest 
hope  that  the  new  King  of  En'^land  would  be  on  good  terms 
with   his    Parliament   and   his    people. f      From    the    Vatican 

*  I  might  transcribe  half  Barillon's  correspondence  in  proof  of  this  proposi- 
tion ;  but  I  will  quote  only  one  passage,  in  which  the  policy  of  the  French  gov- 
ernment towards  England  is  exhibiti'd  concisely  and  with  perfect  clearness. 

"  On  peut  tenir  pour  un  maxime  indubitable  que  I'accord  du  Koy  d'Angleterre 
avec  son  parlement,  en  quelque  manifere  qu'il  se  fasse,  n'est  pas  conforme  aux 
int6rets  de  V.  M.    Je  me  contente  de  penser  cela  sane  m'en  ouvrir  k  personne,  et 

ie  cache  avec  soin  mes  seutimens  k  cet  6gard." — Barillon  to  Lewis,  ^/  " .  '  1687. 
•■  Mar.  10, 

That  this  was  the  real  secret  of  the  whole  policy  of  I^^wis  towards  our  country  was 

perfectly  understood  at  Vienna.    The  Emperor  Leopold  wrote  thus  to  James, 

—^ '  1689  :  "  Galli  id  unum  agebant,  ut,  perpetuas  inter  Serenitatem  vestram 

Apnl  9,  o  I       7  i-      jT 

et  ejusdem  populos  fovendo  simultates,  reliquae  Christianae  Europe  tanto  securius 
insultarent." 

t  "  Que  sea  unido  con  su  reyno,  y  en  todo  buena  intelligencia  con  el  parla- 
mento."— Despatch  from  the  King  of  Spain  to  Don  Pedro  Koiiquillo,  March  16-26, 
1685.  This  despatch  is  in  the  archives  of  Samancas,  which  contain  a  great  mass 
of  papers  relating  to  English  affairs.  Copies  of  the  most  interesting  of  those 
papers  are  in  the  posisession  of  M.  Guizot,  and  were  by  him  lent  to  me.  It  is  with 
pecuUar  pleasure  tbat  at  this  time,  I  acknowledge  this  mark  of  the  friendship 
of  eo  great  man.    (1848.) 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  421 

itself  came  cautions  against  immoderate  zeal  for  the  Roman 
Catholic  faith.  Beuedict  Odescalchi,  who  filled  the  papal 
chair  under  the  name  of  Innocent  the  Eleventh,  felt,  in  his 
character  of  temporal  sovereign,  all  those  apprehensions  with 
which  other  princes  watched  the  progress  of  the  French 
power.  He  had  also  grounds  of  uneasiness  which  were  pecu- 
liar to  himself.  It  was  a  happy  circumstance  for  the  Pro- 
testant religion  that,  at  the  moment  when  the  last  Roman 
Catholic  King  of  England  mounted  the  throne,  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  was  torn  by  dissension,  and  threatened  with 
a  new  schism.  A  quarrel  similar  to  that  which  had  raged  in 
the  eleventh  century  between  the  Emperors  and  the  Supreme 
Pontiffs  had  arisen  between  Lewis  and  Innocent.  Lewis, 
zealous  even  .to  bigotry  for  the  doctrines  of  the  Church  of 
Rome,  but  tenacious  of  his  regal  authority,  accused  the  Pope 
of  encroaching  on  the  secular  rights  of  the  French  Crown, 
and  was  in  turn  accused  by  the  Pope  of  encroaching  on  the 
spiritual  power  of  the  keys.  The  King,  haughty  as  he  was, 
encountered  a  spirit  even  more  determined  than  his  own. 
Innocent  was,  in  all  private  relations,  the  meekest  and  gentlest 
of  men  :  but  when  he  spoke  officially  from  the  chair  of  St. 
Peter,  he  spoke  in  the  tones  of  Gregory  the  Seventh  and  of 
Sixtus  the  Fifth.  The  dispute  became  serious.  Agents  of 
the  King  were  excommunicated.  Adherents  of  the  Pope  were 
banished.  The  King  made  the  champions  of  his  authority 
Bishops.  The  Pope  refused  them  institution.  They  took 
possession  of  the  Episcopal  palaces  and  revenues :  but  they 
were  incompetent  to  perform  the  Episcopal  functions.  Before 
the  struggle  terminated,  there  were  in  France  thirty  prelates 
who  could  not  confirm  or  ordain.* 

Had  any  prince  then  living,  except  Lewis,  been  engaged  in 
such  a  dispute  with  the  Vatican,  he  would  have  had  all  Pro- 
estant  governments  on  his  side.  But  the  fear  and  resent- 
ment which  the  ambition  and  insolence   of  the    French  King 

*  Few  English  readers  will  be  desirous  to  go  deep  into  the  history  of  this  quax- 
rel.  Summaries  will  be  found  in  Cardinal  Bausset's  Life  of  iJossuet,  and  in  Vol- 
taire's Age  of  Lewis  XIV. 


422  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

had  inspired  were  such  that  whoever  had  the  courage  manfully 
to  oppose  him  was  sure  of  public  sympathy.  Even  Lutherans 
and  Calvinists,  who  had  always  detested  the  Pope,  could  not 
refrain  from  wishing  him  success  against  a  tyrant  who  aimed 
at  universal  monarchy.  It  was  thus  that,  in  the  present  century, 
many  who  regarded  Pius  the  Seventh  as  Antichrist  were  well 
pleased  to  see  Antichrist  confront  the  gigantic  power  of  Napo- 
leon. 

The  resentment  which  Innocent  felt  towards  France  dis» 
posed  him  to  take  a'  mild  and  liberal  view  of  the  affairs  of 
England.  The  return  of  the  English  people  to  the  fold  of 
which  lie  was  the  shepherd  would  undoubtedly  have  rejoiced 
his  soul.  But  he  was  too  wise  a  man  to  believe  that  a  nation 
so  bold  and  stubborn,  could  be  brought  back  to  tlie  Church 
of  Rome  by  the  violent  and  unconstitutional  exercise  of  royal 
authority.  It  was  not  difficult  to  foresee  that,  if  James 
attempted  to  promote  the  interests  of  his  religion  by  illegal 
and  unpopular  means,  the  attempt  would  fail ;  the  hatred 
with  which  the  heretical  islanders  regarded  the  true  faith 
would  become  fiercer  and  stronger  than  ever  ;  and  an  indis- 
soluble association  would  be  created  in  their  minds  between 
Protestantism  and  civil  freedom,  between  Popery  and  arbi- 
trary power.  In  the  meantime  the  King  would  be  an  object 
of  aversion  and  suspicion  to  his  people.  England  would  still 
be,  as  she  had  been  under  James  the  First,  under  Charles  the 
First,  and  under  Charles  the  Second,  a  power  of  the  third 
rank ;  and  France  would  domineer  unchecked  beyond  the 
Alps  and  the  Rhine.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  probable 
that  James,  by  acting  with  prudence  and  moderation,  by 
strictly  observing  the  laws  and  by  exerting  himself  to  win  the 
confidence  of  his  Parliament,  might  be  able  to  obtain,  for 
the  professors  of  his  religion,  a  large  measure  of  relief.  Penal 
statutes  would  go  first.  Statutes  imposing  civil  incapacities 
would  soon  follow.  In  the  meantime,  the  English  King 
and  the  English  nation  united  might  head  the  European 
coalition,  and  might  oppose  an  insuperable  barrier  to  the 
cupidity  of  Lewis. 


JAMES    THK    SECOND.  423 

Innoceut  was  confirmed  in  his  judgment  by  the  principal 
Englishmen  who  resided  at  his-  court.  Of  these  the  most 
illustrious  was  Philip  Howard,  sprung  from  the  noblest  houses 
of  Britain,  grandson,  on  one  side,  of  an  Earl  of  Arundel,  on 
the  other,  of  a  Duke  of  Lennox.  Philip  had  long  been  a 
member  of  the  sacred  college :  he  was  commonly  designated 
as  the  Cardinal  of  England ;  and  he  was  the  chief  counsellor 
of  the  Holy  See  in  matters  relating  to  his  country.  He  had 
been  driven  into  exile  by  the  outcry  of  Protestant  bigots ;  and 
a  member  of  his  family,  the  unfortunate  Stafford,  had  fallen 
a  victim  to  their  rage.  But  neither  the  Cardinal's  own  wrongs, 
nor  those  of  his  house,  had  so  heated  his  mind  as  to  make 
him  a  rash  adviser.  Every  letter,  therefore,  which  went  from 
the  Vatican  to  Whitehall,  recommended  patience,  moderation, 
and  respect  for  the  prejudices  of  the  English  people.* 

In  the  mind  of  James  there  was  a  great  conflict.  We 
should  do  him  injustice  if  we  supposed  that  a  state  of  vassal- 
age was  agreeable  to  his  temper.  He  loved  authority  and 
business.  He  had  a  high  sense  of  his  own  personal  dignity. 
Nay,  he  was  not  altogether  destitute  of  a  sentiment  Avhich 
bore  some  affinity  to  patriotism.  It  galled  his  soul  to  think 
that  the  kingdom  which  he  ruled  was  of  far  less  account  in 
the  world  than  many  states  which  possessed  smaller  natural  ad- 
vantages ;  and  he  listened  eagerly  to  foreign  ministers  when 
they  urged  him  to  assert  the  dignity  of  his  rank,  to  place 
himself  at  the  head  of  a  great  confederacy,  to  become  the 
protector  of  injured  nations,  and  to  tame  the  pride  of  that 
power  which  held  the  Continent  in  awe.  Such  exhortations 
made  his  heart  swell  with  emotions  unknown  to  his  care- 
less and  effeminate  brother.  But  those  emotions  were  soon 
subdued  by  a  stronger  feeling.  A  vigorous  foreign  policy 
necessarily  implied  a  conciliatory  domestic  policy.  It  was 
impossible  at  once  to  confront  the  might  of  France  and  to 
trample  on  the  liberties  of  England,  The  executive  govern- 
ment  could   undertake  nothing  great  without  the   support   of 

*  Burnet,  i.  661,  and  Letter  from  Kome  ;  Dodd's  Church  History,  part  viii. 
book  i-  ert.  1. 


424  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

the  Commons,  and  could  obtain  their  support  only  by  acting 
in  conformity  with  their  opinion.  Thus  James  found  that 
the  two  things  which  he  most  desired  could  not  be  enjoyed 
together.  His  second  wish  was  to  be  feared  and  respected 
abroad.  But  his  first  wish  was  to  be  absolute  master  at  home. 
Between  the  incompatible  objects  on  which  his  heart  was  set, 
he,  for  a  time,  went  irresolutely  to  and  fro.  The  conflict  ia 
his  own  breast  gave  to  his  public  acts  a  strange  appearance 
of  indecision  and  insincerity.  Those  who,  without  the  clue, 
attempted  to  explore  the  maze  of  his  politics  were  unable  to 
und:;rstand  how  the  same  man  could  be,  in  the  same  week,  so 
haughty  and  so  mean.  Even  Lewis  was  perplexed  by  the 
vagaries  of  an  ally  who  passed,  in  a  few  hours,  from  homage 
to  defiance,  and  from  defiance  to  homage.  Yet,  now  that  the 
whole  conduct  of  James  is  before  us,  this  inconsistency  seems 
to  admit  of  a  simple  explanation. 

At  the  moment  of  his  accession '  he  was  in  doubt  whether 
the  kingdom  would  peaceably  submit  to  his  authority.  The 
Exclusionists,  lately  so  powerful,  might  rise  in  a)-ms  against 
him.  He  might  be  in  great  need  of  French  money  and 
French  troops.  He  was  therefore,  during  some  days,  content 
to  be  a  sycophant  and  a  mendicant.  He  humbly  apologised 
for  daring  to  call  his  Parliament  together  without  the  consent 
of  the  F^-ench  jrovernment.  He  begged  hard  for  a  French 
subsidy.  He  wept  with  joy  over  the  French  bills  of  exchange. 
He  sent  to  Versailles  a  special  embassy  charged  with  assur- 
ances  of  his  gratitude,  attachment,  and  submission.  But 
scarcely  had  the  embassy  departed  when  his  feelings  under- 
went a  change.  He  had  been  everywhere  proclaimed  without 
one  riot,  without  one  seditious  outcry.  From  all  corners  of 
the  island  he  received  intelligence  that  his  subjects  were  tran- 
cjuil  and  obedient.  His  spirit  rose.  The  degrading  relation 
in  which  he  stood  to  a  foreign  power  seemed  intolerable.  He 
became  proud,  punctilious,  boastful,  quarrelsome.  He  held 
such  high  language  about  the  dignity  of  his  crown  and  the 
balance  of  power  that  his  whole  court  fully  expected  a  com- 
plete revolution    in   the   foreign   politics  of   the  realm.      Ha 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  425 

commanded  Churchill  to  send  home  a  minute  report  of  the 
ceremonial  of  Versailles,  in  order  that  the  honours  with  which 
the  English  embassy  was  received  there  might  be  repaid,  and 
not  more  than  repaid,  to  the  representative  of  France  at 
AVhitehall.  The  news  of  this  change  was  received  with  delighf. 
at  Madrid,  Vienna,  and  the  Hague.*  Lewis  was  at  firsl 
merely  diverted.  "My  good  ally  talks  big,"  he  said;  "but 
he  is  as  fond  of  my  pistoles  as  ever  his  brother  was."  Soon, 
however,  the  altered  demeanour  of  James,  and  the  hopes  witi 
which  that  demeanour  inspired  both  the  branches  of  the 
House  of  Austria,  began  to  call  for  more  serious  notice.  A 
remarkable  letter  is  still  extant,  in  which  the  French  King 
intimated  a  strong  suspicion  that  he  had  been  duped,  and  that 
the  very  money  which  he  had  sent  to  Westminster  would  be 
employed  against  him.t 

By  this  time  England  had  recovered  from  the  sadness  and 
anxiety  caused  by  the  death  of  the  goodnatured  Charles.  The 
Tories  were  loud  in  professions  of  attachment  to  their  new 
master.  The  hatred  of  the  Whigs  was  kept  down  by  fear. 
That  great  mass  which  is  not  steadily  AVhig  or  Tory,  bu*"  which 
inclines  alternately  to  Whiggism  and  to  Toryism,  was  still  on 
the  Tory  side.  The  reaction  which  had  followed  the  dissolution 
of  the  Oxford  parliament  had  not  yet  spent  its  force. 

The  King  early  put  the  loyalty  of  his  Protestant  friends  to 
the  proof.  While  he  was  a  subject,  he  had  been  in  the  habit 
of  hearing  mass  with  closed  doors  in  a  small  oratory  which  had 
been  fitted  up  for  his  wife.  He  now  ordered  the  doors  to  be 
thrown  open,  in  order  that  all  who  came  to  pay  their  duty  to 
him  might  see  the  ceremony.  When  the  host  was  elevated 
there  was  a  strange  confusion  in  the  antechamber.  The 
Roman  Catholics  fell  on  their  knees :  the  Protestants  hlirried 
out  of  the  room.  Soon  a  new  pulpit  was  erected  in  the 
palace  ;  and,  during   Lent,  a   series   of  sermons  was  preached 

*  Consultations  of  the  Spanish  Council  of  State  on  April  2-12  and  April  ie-26, 
in  the  Archives  of  Simancas. 

t  Lewis  to  Barillon,  f  "^  f  •  16g5  ;  Burnet,  i.  623. 
June  1,  '  ' 


426  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

there  by  Popish  divines,  to  the  great  discomposure  of  zealous 
churchmen.* 

A  more  serious  innovation  followed.  Passion  week  came ;  and 
the  King  determined  to  hear  mass  with  the  same  pomp  with 
which  his  predecessors  had  been  surrounded  when  they  repaired 
io  the  temples  of  the  established  religion.  He  announced  his 
intention  to  the  three  members  of  the  interior  cabinet,  and  re- 
quested them  to  attend  him.  Sunderland,  to  whom  all  religions 
were  the  same,  readily  consented.  Godolphin,  as  Chamberlain 
of  the  Queen,  had  already  been  in  the  ^  habit  of  giving  her  his 
hand  when  she  repaired  to  her  oratory,  and  felt  no  scruple 
about  bowing  himself  officially  in  the  house  of  Rimmon.  But 
Rochester  was  greatly  disturbed.  His  influence  in  the  country 
arose  chiefly  from  the  opinion  entertained  by  the  clergy  and  by 
the  Tory  gentry,  that  he  was  a  zealous  and  uncompromising 
friend  of  the  Church.  His  orthodoxy  had  been  considered  as 
fully  atoning  for  faults  which  would  otherwise  have  made  him 
the  most  unpopular  man  in  the  kingdom,  for  boundless  arrogance, 
for  extreme  violence  of  temper,  and  for  manners  almost  brutal. f 
He  feared  that,  by  complying  with  the  royal  wishes,  he  should 
greatly  lower  himself  in  the  estimation  of  his  party.  After 
some  altercation  he  obtained  permission  to  pass  the  holidays  out 
of  town.  All  the  other  great  civil  dignitaries  were  ordered  to 
be  at  their  posts  on  Easter  Sunday.  The  rites  of  the  Church 
of  Rome  were  once  more,  after  an  interval  of  a  hundred  and 
twenty-seven  years,  performed  at  Westminster  with  regal 
splendour.  The  Guards  were  drawn  out.  The  Knights  of 
the  Garter  wore  their  collars.  The  Duke  of  Somerset, 
second  in  rank  among  the  temporal  nobles  of  the  realm,  carried 
the  sword  of  state.  A  long  train  of  great  lords  accompanied 
the  King  to  his  seat.     But  it  was  remarked  that  Ormond  and 


Feb  19 
*  Life  of  .James  the  Second,  i.  5.    Barillon,  mJ^j^  1685 ;    Evelyn's  Diary, 

March  5,  1684-6. 

t  "  To  those  that  ask  boons 

He  Bwears  by  God's  oons, 

And  cliides  them  as  if  they  came-there  to  steal  spooiig." 

Lamentable  Lory,  a  ballad,  1684. 


JAMES    THE    "SECOND.  427 

Halifax  remained  iu  the  antechamber.  A  few  years  before 
they  had  gallantly  defended  the  cause  of  James  against  some 
of  those  who  now  pressed  past  them.  Ormond  had  borne  no 
share  in  the  slaughter  of  Roman  Catholics.  Halifax  had 
courageously  pronounced  Stafford  not  guilty.  As  the  time- 
servers  who  had  pretended  to  shudder  at  the  thought  of  a  Popish 
king,  and  who  had  shed  without  pity  the  innocent  blood  of 
a  Popish  peer,  now  elbowed  each  other  to  get  near  a  Popish 
altar,  the  accomplished  Trimmer  might,  with  some  justice, 
indulge  his  solitary  pride  in  that  unpopiilar  nickname.* 

Within    a    week    after    this    ceremony    James    made    a   far 
greater  sacrifice  of  his  own    religious  prejudices  than  he  had 
yet  called  on  any  of  his  Protestant  subjects  to  make.     He  was 
crowned  on  the  twenty-third  of  April,  the  feast  of  the  patron 
saint  of  the  realm.     The  Abbey  and  the  Hall  were  splendidly 
decorated.     The  presence  of  the  Queen  and  of  the  peeresses 
gave  to  the  solemnity  a  charm  which  had  been  wanting  to  the 
magnificent  inaugui'ation  of  the  late    King.     Yet  those    who 
remembered  that  inauguration    pronounced    that  there  was    a 
great  falling  off.     The   ancient   usage  was  that,  before  a  coro- 
nation, the  sovereign,  with  all  his  heralds,  judges,  councillors, 
lords,  and   great    dignitaries,    should    ride   in    state   from    the 
Tower  of  Westminster.     Of  these  cavalcades  the  last  and  the 
most    glorious    was    that  which     passed    through    the  capital 
while    the    feelings    excited    by  the    Restoration   were  still  in 
full  vigour.     Arches  of  triumph  overhung  the  road.     All  Corn- 
hill,  Cheapside,  Saint  Paul's   Church  Yard,  Fleet  Street,  and 
the  Strand,  were  lined  with   scaffolding.     The  whole  city  had 
thus   been  admitted  to  gaze  on   royalty  in  the  most  splendid 
and   solemn  form  that  royalty  could  wear.     James  ordered  an 
estimate    to    be    made  of    the    cost    of    such  a  procession,  and 
found  that  it  would  amount  to  about  half  as    much  as   he  pro- 
posed   to    expend   in    covering    his    wife    with    trinkets.       He 
accordingly  determined  to  be  profuse  where  he  ought  to  have 
been   frugal,  and  niggardly  where  he   might   pardonably  have 
been  profuse.      More  than  a  hundred  thotisand  po«««i9  we^e 

•  Barillou,  April  20-30  1685. 


428  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

laid  out  ill  dressing  the  Queen,  and  the  procession  from  the 
Tower  was  omitted.  The  folly  of  this  course  is  obvious.  If 
pageantry  be  of  any  use  in  politics,  it  is  of  use  as  a  means  of 
striking  th,e  imagination  of  the  multitude.  It  is  surely  the 
height  of  absurdity  to  shut  out  the  populace  from  a  show  of 
which  the  main  object  is  to  make  an  impression  on  the  pojiulace. 
James  would  have  shown  a  more  judicious  munificence  and  a 
more  judicious  parsimony,  if  he  had  traversed  London  from 
east  to  west  with  t\m  accustomed  pomp,  and  had  ordered  the 
robes  of  his  wife  to  be  somewhat  less  thickly  set  wilh  pearls 
and  diamonds.  His  example  was,  however,  long  followed  by 
his  successors ;  and  sums,  which,  well  employed,  would  have 
afforded  exquisite  gratification  to  a  large  part  of  the  nation, 
were  squandered  on  an  exhibition  to  which  only  three  or  four 
thousand  privileged  persons  were  admitted.  At  length  the 
old  practice  was  partially  revived.  On  the  day  of  the  coro- 
nation of  Queen  Victoria  there  was  a  procession  in  which  many 
deficiencies  might  be  noted,  but  which  was  seen  with  interest 
and  delight  by  half  a  million  of  her  subjects,  and  which  un- 
doubtedly gave  far  greater  pleasure,  and  called  forth  far  great- 
er enthusiasm,  than  the  more  costly  display  which  was  wit 
nessed  by  a  select  circle  within  the  Abbey.  » 

James  had  ordered  Sancroft  to  abridge  the  ritual.  The 
reason  publicly  assigned  was  that  the  day  was  too  short  for 
all  that  was  to  be  done.  But  whoever  examines  the  changes 
which  were  made  will  see  that  the  real  object  was  to  remove 
some  things  highly  offensive  to  the  religious  feelings  of  a 
zealous  Roman  Catholic,  The  Communion  Service  was  not 
read.  The  ceremony  of  presenting  the  sovereign  with  a  richly 
bound  copy  of  the  English  Bible,  and  of  exhorting  him  to 
prize  above  all  earthly  treasures  a  volume  which  he  had  been 
taught  to  regard  as  adulterated  with  false  doctrine,  was  omit- 
ted. What  remained,  however,  after  all  this  curtailment, 
might  well  have  raised  scruples  in  the  mind  of  a  man  who 
sincerely  believed  the  Church  of  England  to  be  a  heretical 
society,  within  the  pale  of  which  salvation  was  not  to  be 
found.    The  King  made  an  oblation  on  the  altar.     He  appeared 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  429 

to  join  in  the  petitions  of  the  Litany  which  was  chaunted  by 
the  Bishops.  He  received  from  those  false  prophets  the  unc- 
tion typical  of  a  divine  influence,  and  knelt  with  the  semblance 
of  devotion,  while  they  called  down  upon  him  that  Holy  Spirit 
of  which  they  were,  in  his  estimation,  the  malignant  and 
obdurate  foes.  Such  are  the  inconsistencies  oi  human  nature 
that  this  man,  who,  from  a  fanatical  zeal  for  his  religion, 
threw  away  three  kingdoms,  yet  chose  to  commit  what  was 
little  short  of  an  act  of  apostasy,  rather  than  forego  the  childish 
pleasure  of  being  invested  with  the  gewgaws  symbolical  of 
kingly  power.* 

Francis  Turner,  Bishop  of  Ely,  preached.  He  was  one  of 
those  writers  who  still  affected  the  obsolete  style  of  Arch- 
bishop Williams  and  Bishop  Andrews.  The  sermon  was  made 
up  of  quaint  conceits,  such  as  seventy  years  earlier  might  have 
been  admired,  but  such  as  moved  the  scorn  of  a  generation 
accustomed  to  the  purer  eloquence  of  Sprat,  of  South,  and 
of  Tillotson.  King  Solomon  was  King  James.  Adonijah 
was  Monmouth.  Joab  was  a  Rye  House  conspirator ;  Shimei, 
a  Whie  libeller ;  Abiathar,  an  honest  but  misguided  old 
Cavalier.  One  phrase  in  the  Book  of  Chronicles  was  con- 
strued to  mean  that  the  King  was  above  the  Parliament ;  and 
another  was  cited  to  prove  that  he  alone  ought  to  command 
the  militia.  Towards  the  close  of  the  discourse  the  orator 
very  timidly  alluded  to  the  new  and  embarrassing  position  in 
which  the  Church  stood  with  reference  to  the  sovereign,  and 
reminded  his  hearers  that  the  Emperor  Constantius  Clilorus, 
thouijh  not  himself  a  Christian,  had  held  in  honour  those 
Christians  who  remained  true  to  their  religion,  and  had 
treated  with  scorn  those  who  sought  to  earn  his  favour  by 
apostasy.  The  service  in  the  Abbey  was  followed  by  a  stately 
banquet  in  the  Hall,  the  banquet  by  brilliant  fireworks,  and 
the  fireworks  by  much  bad  poetry,  f 

*  From  Adda's  despatch  of  J?Eji:.  1686,   and  from  the  expressions  of  the  Pfero 

Keb.  1, 

d'  Orleans  (Histoire  des  Revolutions  d' Aaigleterre,  liv.  xi.),  it  is  clear  that  rigid 
Catholics  thought  the  King's  conduct  indefensible. 

t  London  Gazette  ;  Gazette  de  France  ;  Life  of  James  the  Second,  u.  10  ; 
History  of  the  Coronation  of  King  James  the  Second  and  Queen  Mary,  by  Francia 


430  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

This  may  he  fixed  upon  as  tlie  momeut  at  which  the  enthu- 
siasm of  the  Tory  party  reached  the  zenith.  Ever  since  the 
accession  of  the  new  King,  addresses  had  been  pouring  in 
which  expressed  profpuud  veneration  for  his  person  and  office, 
and  bitter  detestation  of  the  vanquished  Whigs.  The  magis- 
trates of  Middlesex  thanked  God  for  having  confounded  the 
designs  of  those  regicides  and  exclusionists  who,  not  content 
with  having  murdered  one  blessed  monarch,  were  bent  on 
destroying  the  foundations  of  monarchy.  The  city  of  Glou- 
cester execrated  the  bloodthirsty  villains  who  had  tried  to 
deprive  His  Majesty  of  "his  just  inheritance.  The  burgesses 
of  Wigan  assured  their  sovereign  that  they  would  defend  him 
against  all  plotting  Achitophels  and  rebellious  Absaloms.  The 
grand  jury  of  Suifolk  expressed  a  hope  that  the  Parliament 
would  proscribe  all  the  exclusionists.  Many  corporations 
pledged  themselves  never  to  return  to  the  House  of  Commons 
any  person  who  had  voted  for  takirig  away  the  birthright  of 
James.  Even  the  capital  was  profoundly  obsequious.  The 
lawyers  and  the  traders  vied  with  each  other  in  servility.  Inns 
of  ('i)urt  and  Inns  of  Chancery  sent  up  fervent  professions  of 
attacliment  and  submission.  All  the  great  commercial  societies, 
the  East  India  Company,  the  African  Comi)any,  the  Turkey 
Company,  the  Muscovy  Company,  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company, 
the  Maryland  Merfiba-iits,  the  Jamaica  Merchants,  the  Mer- 
chant Adv  nhi  e  s  d  1 1  'ed  that  they  most  cheerfully  complied 
with  the  royal  iMV--t  wliich  rpquired  them  still  to  pay  custom. 
Bristol,  the  sr-cond  <-itv  of  the  island,  (vlioed  the  voice  of  Lon- 
don. ^ut  nowh'^:-^.  was  tb-  ^ -lirU.  of  loyalty  stronger  than  in 
the  two  T"fniversities.  Ox  Mid  dpclared  that  she  would  never 
swerve  from  those  religious  principles  which  bound  her  to  obey 

Saiidford,  Lancaster  Herald  fol.  16«7  :  Evelyn's  Diary,  May,  21, 1685  ;  Despatch 
of  the  Dutch  Ami^assadois.  April  10-20, 1685:  Buniet,  i.  62?  :  Eachard,  iii.  734  ;  A 
sermon  preiehed  before  their  Majesies  Kiii?  .Tnines  (he  Second  and  Queen 
kar>' at  thpiv  roronation  in  Westminster  Abbey,  April  2;<,  I6R5,  by  Francis  Lord 
Bisbon  of  Flv,  and  Lord  Almoner.  I  have  seen  an  Italian  acconnt  of  the  Coro- 
nation which  wns  nnblisbed  at  ■VTodem,  and  which  is  chiefly  remarkable  for  the 
skill  wi'h  which  the  writer  sink  the  ffl/>t  that  the  prayers  and  psalms  were  in 
English,  and  that  the  Bisho;)9  were  heretics. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  431 

the  King  without  any  restrictions  or  limitations.  Cambridge 
condemned,  in  severe  terms,  the  violence  and  treachery  of  those 
turbulent  men  who  had  maliciously  endeavoured  to  turn  the 
stream  of  succession  out  of  the  ancient  channel.* 

Such  addresses  as  these  filled,  during  a  considerable  time, 
every  number  of  the  London  Gazette.  But  it  was  not  only  by 
addressinjr  that  the  Tories  showed  their  zeal.  The  writs  for 
the  new  Parliament  had  gone  forth,  and  the  country  was  agi- 
tated by  the  tumult  of  a  general  election.  No  election  had 
ever  taken  place  under  circumstances  so  favourable  to  the 
Court.  Hundreds  of  thousands  whom  the  Popish  plot  had 
scared  into  Whiggism  had  been  scared  back  by  the  Rye  House 
plot  into  Toryism.  In  the  counties  the  government  could 
depend  on  an  overwhelming  majority  of  the  gentlemen  of  three 
hundred  a  year  and  upwards,  and  on  the  clergy  almost  to  a 
man.  Those  boroughs  which  had  once  been  the  citadels  ot 
Whiggism  had  recently  been  deprived  of  their  charters  by  legal 
sentence,  or  had  prevented  the  sentence  by  voluntary  surren- 
der. They  had  now  been  reconstituted  in  such  a  manner  that 
they  were  certain  to  return  members  devoted  to  the  crown. 
Where  the  townsmen  could  not  be  trusted,  the  freedom  had 
been  bestowed  on  the  neighbouring  squires.  In  some  of  the 
small  western  corporations,  the  constituent  bodies  were  in  great- 
part  composed  of  Captains  and  Lieutenants  of  the  Guards.  The 
returning  officers  were  almost  everywhere  in  the  interest  of  the 
court.  In  every  shire  the  Lord  Lieutenant  and  his  deputies 
formed  a  powerful,  active,  and  vigilant  committee,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  cajoling  and  intimidating  the  freeholders.  The  people 
were  solemnly  warned  from  thousands  of  pulpits  not  to  vote 
for  any  Whig  candidate,  as  they  should  answer  it  to  Him  who 
had  ordained  the  powers  that  be,  and  who  had  pronounced  re- 
bellion a  sin  not  less  deadly  than  witchcraft.  All  these  advan- 
tages the  predominant  party  not  only  used  to  the  utmost,  but 
abused  in  so  shameless  a  manner  that  gra%'e  and  reflecting  men, 
who  had  been  true  to  the  monarchy  in  peril,  and  who  bore  no 

*  See  the  London  Gazette  (Juring  tbe  months  of  February,  Marcb»  and  April, 


432  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  >, 

love  to  republicans  and  schismatics,  stood  aghast,  and  augured 
from  such  beginnings  the  ajjproach  of  evil  times.  * 

Yet  the  Whigs,  though  suffering  the  just  punishmejit  of 
their  errors,  though  defeated,  disheartened,  and  disorganized, 
did  not  yield  without  an  effort.  They  were  still  numerous 
among  the  traders  and  artisans  of  the  towns,  and  among  the 
yeomanry  and  peasantry  of  tlie  open  country.  In  some  dis' 
tricts,  in  Dorsetshire  for  example,  and  in  Somersetshire,  they 
were  the  great  majority  of  the  population.  In  the  remodelled 
boroughs  they  could  do  nothing :  but,  in  every  county  where 
they  had  a  chance,  they  struggled  desperately.  In  Bedford- 
shire, which  had  lately  been  represented  by  the  virtuous  and 
unfortunate  Russell,  they  were  victorious  on  the  show  of  hands, 
but  were  beaten  at  the  poll.f  In  Essex  they  polled  thirteen 
hundred  votes  to  eighteen  hundred.  $  At  the  election  for 
Northamptonshire  the  common  people  were  so  violent  in  their 
hostility  to  the  court  candidate  that  a  body  of  troops  was  drawn 
out  in  the  marketplace  of  the  county  town,  and  was  ordered  to 
load  with  ball.§  The  history  of  the  contest  for  Buckingham- 
shire is  still  more  remarkable.  The  whig  candidate,  Thomas 
Wharton,  eldest  sou  of  Philip  Lord  Wharton,  was  a  man  dis- 
tinguished alike  by  dexterity  and  by  audacity,  and  destined  to 
play  a  conspicuous,  though  not  always  a  respectable,  part  in  the 
politics  of  several  reigns.  He  had  been  one  of  those  members 
of  the  House  of  Commons  who  had  carried  up  the  Exclusion 
Bill  to  the  bar  of  the  Lords.  The  court  was  therefore  bent  on 
throwing  him  out  by  fair  or  foul  means.  The  Lord  Chief  Jus- 
tice Jeffreys  himself  came  down  into  Buckinghamshire,  for  the 


*  It  would  be  easy  to  till  a  volume  with  what  "Whig  historians  and  pamphlet- 
eers have  written  on  this  subject.  I  will  cite  only  one  witness,  a  churchman 
and  a  Tory.  "  Elections,"  says  Evelyn,  "  were  thought  to  be  very  indecently 
canied  on  in  most  places.  God  give  a  better  issue  of  it  than  some  expect !  " 
May  10,  1685.  Again  he  says,  "  The  truth  is  there  were  many  of  the  new  mem. 
bers  whose  elections  and  returns  were  universally  condemned."    May  22. 

t  This  fact  I  learned  from  a  newsletter  in  the  library  of  the  Royal  Institution, 
Van  Citters  mentions  the  strength  of  the  Whig  party  in  Bedfordshire. 

t  Bramston's  Memoirs. 

§  Reflections  on  a  Remonstrance  and  Protestation  of  all  the  good  Protestants 
of  this  Kingdom,  1689  ;  Dialogue  between  Two  Friends,  1689. 


JAMES   THE    SECOND.  433 

purpose  of  assisting  a  gentleman  named  Hacket,  who  stood  on 
the  high  Tory  interest.  A  stratagem  was  devised  which,  it 
was  thought,  could  not  fail  of  success.  It  was  given  out  that 
the  polling  would  take  place  at  Ailesbury  ;  and  Wharton, 
whose  skill  in  all  the  arts  of  electioneering  was  unrivalled,  made 
his  arrangements  on  that  supposition.  At  a  moment's  warning 
the  Sheriff  adjourned  tiw  poll  to  Newport  Pagnell.  Wharton 
and  his  friends  hurried  thither,  and  found  that  Hacket,  who 
.  was  in  the  secret,  had  already  secured  every  inn  and  lodging. 
The  Whig  freeholders  were  compelled  to  tie  their  horses  to 
the  hedges,  and  to  sleep  under  the  open  sky  in  the  meadows 
which  surround  the  little  town.  It  was  with  the  greatest 
difficulty  that  refreshments  could  be  procured  at  such  short 
notice  for  so  large  a  number  of  men  and  beasts,  though  Wharton, 
who  was  utterly  regardless  of  money  when  his  ambition  and 
party  spirit  were  roused,  disbursed  fifteen  hundred  pounds  in 
one  day,  an  immense  outlay  for  those  times.  Injustice  seems, 
however,  to  have  animated  the  courage  of  the  stouthearted  yeo- 
men of  Bucks,  the  sons  of  the  constituents  of  John  Hampden. 
Not  only  was  Wharton  at  the  head  of  the  poll ;  but  he  was 
able  to  'spare  his  second  votes  to  a  man  of  moderate  opinions, 
and  to  throw  out  the  Chief  Justice's  candidate.* 

In  Cheshire  the  contest  lasted  six  days.  The  Whigs  polled 
about  seventeen  hundred  votes,  the  Tories  about  two  thousand. 
The  common  people  were  vehement  on  the  Whig  side,  raised  the 
cry  of  "  Down  with  the  Bishops,"  insulted  the  clergy  in  the 
streets  of  Chester,  knocked  down  one  gentleman  of  the  Tory 
party,  broke  the  windows  and  beat  the  constables.  The  nulitia 
was  called  out  to  quell  the  riot,  and  was  kept  assembled,  in 
order  to  protect  the  festivities  of  the  conquerors.  When  the 
poll  closed,  a  salute  of  five  great  guns  from  the  castle  proclaimed 
the  triumph  of  the  Church  and  the  Crown  to  the  surrounding 
country.  The  bells  rang.  The  newly  elected  members  went 
in  state  to  the  City  Cross,  accompanied  by  a  band  of  music, 
and  by  a  long  train  of  knights  and  squires.     The  procession,  as 

*  Memoirs  of  the  Life  of  Thomas  Marquess  of  Wharton,  1715. 

28 


434  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

It  marched,  sang  "  Joy  to  Great  Cfesar,"  a  loyal  ode,  which  had 
lately  been  written  by  Durfey,  and  which,  though  like  all  Dur- 
fey's  writings,  utterly  contemptible,  was,  at  that  time,  almost  as 
popular  as  Lillibullero  became  a  few  years  later.*  Round  the 
Cross  the  trainbands  were  drawn  up  in  order :  a  bonfire  was 
lisfhted :  the  Exclusion  Bill  was  burned :  and  the  health  of 
King  James  was  drunk  with  loud  acclamations.  The  following 
day  was  Sunday.  In  the  morning  the  militia  lined  the  streets 
leading  to  the  Cathedral.  The  two  knights  of  the  shire  were 
escorted  with  great  pomp  to  their  choir  by  the  magistracy  of  the 
city,  heard  the  Dean  preach  a  sermon,  probably  on  the  duty  of 
passive  obedience,  and  were  afterwards  feasted  by  the  Mayor.f 

In  Northumberland  the  triumph  of  Sir  John  Fenwick,  a 
courtier  whose  name  afterwards  obtained  a  melancholy  celeb- 
rity, was  attended  by  circumstances  which  excited  interest 
in  London,  and  which  were  thought  not  unworthy  of  being 
mentioned  in  the  despatches  of  foreign  ministers.  Newcastle 
was  lighted  up  with  great  piles  of  coal.  The  steeples  sent 
forth  a  joyous  peal.  A  copy  of  the  Exclusion  Bill,  and  a 
black  box,  resembling  that  which,  according  to  the  popular 
fable,  contained  the  contract  between  Charles  the  Second  and 
Lucy  Walters,  were  publicly  committed  to  the  flames,  with 
loud  acclamations,  t 

The  general  result  of  the  elections  exceeded  the  most  san- 
guine expectations  of  the  court.  James  found  with  delight 
that  it  would  be  unnecessary  for  him  to  expend  a  farthing  in 
buying  votes.  He  said  that,  with  the  exception  of  about  forty 
members,  the  House  of  Commons  was  just  -such  as  he  should 
hims~elf  have  named. §  And  this  House  of  Commons  it  was  in 
his  power,  as  the  law  then  stood,  to  keep  to  the  end  of  his 
reign. 

Secure  of  parliamentary  support,  he   might   now  indulge   in 

*  See  the  Guardian,  No.  67  ;  an  exquisite  specimen  of  Addison's  peculiar 
planner.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  in  the  works  of  any  other  writer  puch  an  in- 
stance of  benevolence  delicately  flavoured  ■nith  contempt. 

t  TheObservator,  April  4,  1685. 

t  Despatch  of  the  Dutch  Ambassadors,  April  XO-20  J685. 

§  Burnet,  i.  626. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  435 

the  luxury  of  reveuge.  His  nature  was  not  placable ;  and, 
while  still  a  subject,  he  had  suffered  some  injuries  and  indig- 
nities which  might  move  even  a  placable  nature  to  fierce  and 
lasting  resentment.  One  set  of  men  in  particular  had,  with 
a  baseness  and  cruelty  beyon-d  all  example  and  all  description, 
attacked  his  honour  and  his  life,  the  witnesses  of  the  plot. 
He  may  well  be  excused  for  hating  them ;  since,  even  at  this 
day,  the  mention  of  their  names  excites  the  disgust  and  horror 
of  all  sects  and  parties. 

Some  of  these  wretches  were  already  beyond  the  reach  of 
human  justice.  Bedloe  had  died  in  his  wickedness,  without 
one  sign  of  remorse  or  shame.*  Dugdale  had  followed,  driven 
mad,  men  said,  by  the  Furies  of  an  evil  conscience,  and  with 
lou(i  shrieks  imploring  those  who  stood  round  his  bed  to  take 
away  Lord  Stafford.f  Carstairs,  too,  was  gone.  His  end  had 
been  all  horror  and  despair  ;  and,  with  his  last  breath,  he  had 
told  his  attendants  to  throw  him  into  a  ditch  like  a  dog,  for 
that  he  was  not  fit  to  sleep  in  a  Christian  burial  ground. J 
But  Gates  and  Dangerfield  were  still  witliin  the  reach  of  the 
stern  prince  whom  they  had  wronged.  James,  a  short  time 
before  his  accession,  had  instituted  a  civil  suit  against  Gates 
for  defamatory  words  ;  and  a  jury  had  given  damages  to  the 
enormous  amount  of  a  hundred  thousand  pounds. §  The  de- 
fendant had  been  taken  in  execution,  and  was  lying  in  prison 
as  a  debtor,  without  hope  of  release.  Two  bills  of  indictment 
against  him  for  perjury  had  been  found  by  the  grand  jury  of 
Middlesex,  a  few  weeks  before  the  death  of  Charles.  Soon 
after  the  close  of  the  elections  the  trial  came  on. 

AmonjT  the  upper  and  middle  classes  Gates  had  few  friends 
left.  The  most  respectable  Whigs  were  now  convinced  that, 
even  if  his  narrative  had  some  foundation  in  fact,  he  had 
erected  on  that  foundation  a  vast  superstructure  of   romance. 

»  A  faithful  aoeoimt  of  the  Sickness.  Death,  and  Burial  of  Captain  Bediow, 
1680  ;  Narrative  of  Lord  Chief  Justice  Korth. 
t  Smith's  Intrigues  of  the  Popish  Plot,  16«5. 
t  Burnet,  i.  430. 
§  See  tiie  proceedings  in  the  Collection  of  State  Trials. 


436  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

A  considerable  number  of  low  fanatics,  howe-ver,  still  regarded 
him  as  a  public  benefactor.  These  people  well  knew  that,  if 
he  were  convicted,  his  sentence  would  be  one  of  extreme 
severity,  and  were  therefore  indefatigable  in  their  endeavours 
to  manage  an  escape.  Though  he  was  as  yet  in  confinement 
only  for  debt,  he  was  put  into  irons  by  the  authorities  of  the 
King's  Bench  prison  ;  and  even  so  he  was  with  difficulty  kept 
in  safe  custody.  The  mastiff  that  guarded  his  door  was 
poisoned  ;  and,  on  the  very  night  preceding  the  trial,  a  ladder 
of  ropes  was  introduced  into  the  cell. 

On  the  day  in  which  Titus  was  brought  to  the  bar,  West- 
minster Hall  was  crowded  with  spectators,  among  whom  were 
many  Roman  Catholics,  eager  to  see  the  misery  and  humilia- 
tion of  their  persecutor.*  A  few  years  earlier  his  short  neck, 
his  legs  uneven,  the  vulgar  said,  as  those  of  a  badger,  his 
forehead  low  as  that  of  a  baboon,  his  purple  cheeks,  and  his 
monstrous  length  of  chin,  had  been  familiar  to  all  who  fre- 
quented the  courts  of  law.  He  had  then  been  the  idol  of  the 
nation.  Wherever  he  had  appeared,  men  had  uncovered  their 
heads  to  him.  The  lives  and  estates  of  the  magnates  of  the 
realm  had  been  at  his  mercy.  Times  had  now  changed  ;  and 
many,  who  had  formerly  regarded  him  as  the  deliverer  of  his 
country,  shuddered  at  the  sight  of  those  hideous  features  ou 
which  villany  seemed  to  be  written  by  the  hand  of  God.f 

It  was  proved,  beyond  all  possibility  of  doubt,  that  this 
toan  had  by  false  testimony  deliberately  murdered  several 
guiltless  persons.  He  called  in  vain  on  the  most  eminent 
members  of  the  Parliaments  which  had  rewarded  and  extolled 
him  to  give  evidence  in  his  favour.  Some  of  those  whom  he 
had  summoned  absented  themselves.  None  of  them  said  any- 
thing tending  to  his  vindication.  One  of  them,  the  Earl  of 
Huntingdon,  bitterly  reproached  him  with  having  deceived  the- 
Houses  and  drawn  on  them  the  guilt  of  shedding  innocent 
blood.     The  Judges  browbeat  and  reviled  the  prisoner  with  an 

*  Evelyn's  Diary,  May  7,  1685. 

t  There  remain  many  pictures  of  Gates.  The  most  striking  descriptions  of 
his  person,are  in  North's  Examen,  225,  in  Dryden's  Absalom  and  Aehitophel, 
ind  in  a  broadside  entitled,  A  Hue  and  Cry  after  T.  O. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  ,        437 

intemperance  which,  even  in  the  most  atrocious  cases,  ill  be- 
comes the  judicial  character.  He  betrayed,  however,  no  sign  of 
fear  or  of  shame,  and  faced  the  storm  of  invective  which  burst 
upon  him  from  bar,  bench,  and  witness  box,  with  the  insolence 
of  despair.  He  was  convicted  on  both  indictments.  His  of- 
fence, though,  in  a  moral  light,  murder  of  the  most  aggravated 
kind,  was,  in  the  eye  of  'he  law,  merely  a  misdemeanour.  The 
tribunal,  however,  was  nesii'ous  to  make  his  punishment  more 
severe  than  that  of  felona  or  traitors,  and  not  merely  to  put  him 
to  death,  but  to  put  him  to  death  by  frightful  torments.  He  was 
sentenced  to  be  stripped  of  his  clerical  habit,  to  be  pilloried  in 
Palace  Yard,  to  be  led  round  Westminster  Hall  with  a.'i  inscrip- 
tion declaring  his  infamy  over  his  head,  to  be  pilloried  again  in 
front  of  the  Royal  Exchange,  to  be  whipped  from  Aldgate  to 
Newgate,  and,  after  an  interval  of  two  days,  to  be  whipped 
from  Newgate  to  Tyburn.  If,  against  all  probability,  he  should 
happen  to  survive  this  horrible  infliction,  he  was  to  be  kept 
close  prisoner  daring  life.  Five  times  every  year  he  was  to  be 
brought  forth  from  his  dungeon  and  exposed  on  the  pillory  in 
different  parts  of  the  capital.*  This  rigorous  sentence  was  rig- 
orously executed.  On  the  day  on  which  Oates  was  pilloried  in 
Palace  Yard  he  was  mercilessly  pelted  and  ran  some  risk  of 
being  pulled  in  pieces. f  But  iu  the  City  his  partisans  mus- 
tered in  great  force,  raised  a  riot,  and  upset  the  pillory. $  They 
were,  however,  unable  to  rescue  their  favourite.  It  was  sup- 
posed that  he  would  try  to  escape  the  horrible  doom  which 
awaited  him  by  swallowing  poison.  All  that  he  ate  and  drank 
was  therefore  carefully  inspected.  On  the  following  morning 
he  was  brought  forth  to  undergo  his  first  flogging.  At  an  early 
hour  an  innumerable  multitude  filled  all  the  streets  from  Aid- 
gate  to  the  Old  Bailey.  The  hangman  laid  on  the  lash  with 
such  unusual  severity  as  showed  that  he  had  received  special  in- 
structions. The  blood  ran  down  in  rivulets.  For  a  time  the 
criminal  showed  a  strange  constancy  :  but  at  last  his  stubborn 

*  The  proceedings  will  be  found  at  length  in  the  Collection  of  State  Trials. 

May  29, 
t  Gazette  de  France  j^^^.  g    1685. 

t  Despatch  of  the  Dutch  Ambassadors,  May  19-29  1686. 


438  HISTORY    OP   ENGLAND. 

fortitude  gave  way.  His  bellowings  were  frightful  to  hear. 
He  swooned  several  times  ;  but  the  scourge  still  continued  to 
descend.  When  he  was  unbound,  it  seemed  that  he  had  borne 
as  much  as  the  human  frame  can  bear  without  dissolution.  James 
was  entreated  to  remit  the  second  flogging.  His  answer  was  short 
and  clear:  "He  shall  go  through  with  it,  if  he  has  breath  in 
his  body."  An  attempt  was  made  to  obtain  the  Queen's  inter- 
cession ;  but  she  indignantly  refused  to  say  a  word  in  favour  of 
such  a  wretch.  After  an  interval  ot  only  forty-eight  hours, 
Gates  was  again  brought  out  of  his  dungeon.  He  was  unable 
to  stand,  and  it  was  necessary  to  drag  him  to  Tyburn  on  a 
sledge.  He  seemed  quite  insensible ;  and  the  Tories  reported 
that  he  had  stupified  himself  with  strong  drink.  A  person  who 
counted  the  stripes  on  the  second  day  said  that  they  were  seven- 
teen hundred.  The  bad  man  escaped  with  life,  but  so  narrowly  that 
his  ignorant  and  bigoted  admirers  thought  his  recovery  mu-acu- 
lous,  and  appealed  to  it  as  a  proof  of  his  innocence.  The  doors 
of  the  piivon  closed  upon  him.  During  many  months  he  re- 
mained ironed  in  the  darkest  hole  of  Newgate.  It  was  said  that 
,  in  his  cell  he  gave  himself  up  to  melancholy,  and  sate  whole 
days  uttering  deep  groans,  his  arms  folded,  and  his  hat  pulled 
over  his  eyes.  It  was  not  m  England  alone  that  these  events 
excited  strong  interest.  Millions  of  Roman  Catholics,  who  knew 
nothing  of  our  institutions  or  of  our  factions,  had  heard  that  a 
persecution  of  singular  barbarity  had  raged  in  our  island  against 
the  professors  of  the  true  faith,  that  many  pious  men  had  suf- 
fered martyrdom,  and  that  Titus  Gates  had  been  the  chief  mur- 
derer. There  was,  therefore,  great  joy  in  distant  countries  when 
it  was  known  that  the  divine  justice  had  overtaken  him.  Engrav- 
ings of  him,  looking  out  from  the  pillory,  and  writhing  at  the 
cart's  tail,  were  circulated  all  over  Europe;  and  epigrammatists, 
m  many  languages,  made  merry  with  the  doctoral  title  which  he. 
pretended  to  have  received  from  the  University  of  Salamanca, 
and  remarked  that,  since  his  forehead  could  not  be  made  to 
blush,  it  was  but  reasonable  that  his  back  should  do  so.* 

•  Evelyn's  Diary,  May  22,  1685  ;  Eacbard,  iii.  741  ;    Burnet,  1.  637;   Obserrator, 
al*y  27. 1686 ;  Oates's  Kikuv,  89  j  E'ikuv  ^poTO^-oiyov,  169X  j  Commons'  Journals  of 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  43& 

Horrible  as  were   the  sufferings  of  Oates,  they  did  not  equal 
his  crimes.     The  old  law  of  England,  which  had  been  suffered 
to  become  obsolete,  treated  the  false  witness,  who  had  caused 
death  by  means  of  perjury,  as   a  murderer.*     This   was   wise 
and  righteous  ;    for  such   a   witness   is,  in  truth,  the   worst  of 
murderers.     To  the  guilt  of  shedding  innocent  blood  he  has 
added  the  guilt  of  violating  the  most  solemn  engagement  into 
which    man    can  enter  with    his    fellow    men,  and   of   making 
institutions,  to  which  it  is  desirable  that   the  public  should  look 
with   respect  and  confidence,  instruments  of  frightful  wrong 
and   objects   of    general   distrust.        Tlie   pain    produced   by 
ordinary  mui'der  bears  no  proportion  to  the  pain  produced  by 
murder  of  which  the  courts  of  justice   are  made  the  agents. 
The  mere  extinction  of  life  is  a  very  small  part  of  what  makes 
an  execution   horrible.      The   prolonged  mental   agony  of  the 
sufferer,  the  shame  and  misery  of  all  connected  with  him,  the 
stain  abiding  even  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation,  are  things 
far  more   dreadful  than  death  itself.     In  general  it  may  be 
safely  affirmed  that   the   father  of  a  large  family  would  rather 
be  bereaved  of  all  his  children  by  accident   or  by  disease  than 
lose  one  of  them  by  the  liands  of  the  hangman.     Murder  by 
false   testimony  is  therefore   the  most  aggravated  species  of 
murder ;   and  Oates  had  been  guilty  of  many  such  murders. 
Nevertheless  the   punishment   which    was   inflicted  upon   him 
cannot  be  justified.     In  sentencing  him  to  be   stripped  of  his 
ecclesiastical  habit  and  imprisoned  for  life,  the  judges  exceeded 

May,  June,  and  July,  1689  ;  Tom  Brown's  advice  to  Dr.  Oates.  Some  interesting 
circumstances  are  mentioned  in  abroadside,  printedfor  A.  Brooks,  ChaiingCross, 
1685.  I  have  seen  contemporary  French  and  Italian  pamphlets  containing  the 
history  of  the  trial  and  execution.  A  print  of  Titus  in  the  pillory  was  published 
at  Milan,  with  the  following  curious  inscription  :  "  Questo  e  il  naturale  ritratto 
di  Tito  Otez,  o  vero  Oatz,  Inglese,  posto  in  berliua,  uno  de'  principali  professor! 
della  religion  protestante,  acerrimo  persecutore  de'  Cattolici,  e  gran  spergiuro." 
1  have  also  seen  a  Dutch  engraving  of  his  punishment,  with  some  Latin  verses,  of 
\yhich  the  following  are  a  specimen  : 

"  At  Doctor  fictus  non  fictos  pertnlit  ictus, 
A  tortorc  dates  haud  molli  in  corpore  gratos, 
Discerct  ut  vere  ecelera  ob  commissa  rubere." 

The  anagram  of  his  name,  "  Testis  Ovat,"  may  be  found  on  many  prints  pub- 
lished in  different  countries, 
*  Blackstone's  Commentaries,  Chapter  of  Hoaieide. 


440  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

their  legal  power.  They  were  undoubtedly  competent  to  inflict 
whipping ;  nor  had  the  law  assigned  a  limit  to  the  number  of 
stripes.  But  the  spirit  of  the  law  clearly  was  that  no  misde- 
meanour should  be  punished  more  severely  than  the  most  atrocious 
felonies.  The  worst  felon  could  only  be  hanged.  The  judges, 
as  they  believed,  sentenced  Gates  to  be  scourged  to ,  death. 
That  the  law  was  defective  is  not  a  sufficient  excuse :  for 
defective  laws  should  be  altered  by  the  legislature,  and  not 
strained  by  the  tribunals  ;  and  least  of  all  should  the  law  be 
strained  for  the  purpose  of  inflicting  torture  and  destroying 
life.  That  Gates  was  a  bad  man  is  not  a  sufficient  excuse ;  for 
the  guilty  are  almost  always  the  first  to  suffer  those  hardships 
which  are  afterwards  used  as  precedents  against  the  innocent. 
Thus  it  was  in  the  present  case.  Merciless  flogging  soon 
became  an  ordinary  punishment  for  political  misdemeanours  of 
no  very  aggravated  kind.  Men  were  sentenced,  for  words 
spoken  against  the  government,  to  pains  so  excruciating  that 
they,  with  unfeigned  earnestness,  begged  to  be  brought  to  trial 
on  capital  charges,  and  sent  to  the  gallows.  Happily  the  prog- 
ress of  this  great  evil  was  speedily  stopped  by  the  Revolution, 
and  by  that  article  of  the  Bill  of  Rights  which  condemns  all 
cruel  and  unusual  punishments. 

The  villany  of  Dangerfield  had  not,  like  that  of  Gates,  de- 
stroyed many  innocent  victims  ;  for  Dangerfield  had  not  taken 
up  the  trade  of  a  witness  till  the  plot  had  been  blown  upon  and 
till  juries  had  become  incredulous.*  He  was  brought  to  trial, 
not  for  perjury,  but  for  the  less  heinous  offense  of  libel.  He 
had,  during  the  agitation  caused  ^by  the  Exclusion  Bill,  put 
forth  a  narrative  containing  some  false  and  odious  imputations 
on  the  late  and  on  the  present  King.  For  this  publication  he 
was   now,   after  the  lapse  of  five  years,  suddenly   taken  up, 


*  According  to  Roger  North  the  judges  decided  that  Dangerfield,  having  been 
previously  convicted  of  perjury,  was  incompetent  to  be  a  witness  of  the  plot- 
But  this  is  one  among  many  instances  of  Roger's  inaccuracy.  It  appears,  from 
the  report  of  the  trial  of  Lord  Castlemaine  in  June  1680,  that,  after  muoh  alter- 
cation between  counsel,  and  much  consultation  an^ong  the  judges  of  the  different 
courts  in  Westminster  Hall,  Dangerfield  was  sworn  and  suffered  to  tell  his  story  ; 
but  the  jury  very  properly  gave  no  credit  to  his  testimony. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  441 

bro-aght  before  the  Privy  Council,  committed,  tried,  convicted^ 
and  sentenced  to  be  whipped  from  Aldgate  to  Newgate  and 
from  Newgate  to  Tyburn.  The  wretched  man  behaved  with 
great  effrontery  during  the  trial ;  but,  when  he  heard  his  doom., 
he  went  into  agonies  of  despair,  gave  himself  up  for  dead,  and 
chose  a  text  for  his  funeral  sermon.  His  forebodings  were 
just.  He  was  not,  indeed,  scourged  quite  so  severely  as  Oates 
had  been ;  but  he  had  not  Oates's  iron  strength  of  body  and 
mind.  After  the  execution  Dangerfield  was  put  into  a  hackney 
coach  and  was  taken  back  to  prison.  As  he  passed  the  corner  of 
Hatton  Garden,  a  Tory  gentleman  of  Gray's  Inn,  named  Fran- 
cis, stopped  the  carriage,  and  cried  out  with  brutal  levity,  "  Well, 
friend,  have  you  had  "your  heat  this  morning  ?  "  The  bleed- 
ing prisoner,  maddened  by  this  insult,  answered  with  a  curse. 
Francis  instantly  struck  him  in  the  face  with  a  cane  which  in- 
jured the  eye.  Dangerfield  was  carried  dying  into  Newgate. 
This  dastardly  outrage  roused  'the  indignation  of  the  bystanders. 
They  seized  Francis,  and  were  with  difficulty  restrained  from 
tearing  him  to  pieces.  The  appearance  of  Dangerfield's  body, 
which  had  been  frightfully  lacerated  by  the  whip,  inclined  many 
to  believe  that  lil;  death  was  chiefly,  if  not  wholly,  caused  by 
the  stripes  which  lie  had  received.  The  government  and  the 
Chief  Justice  thought  it  convenient  to  lay  the  whole  blame  on 
Francis,  who,  though  he  seems  to  have  been  at  worst  guilty  only 
of  awgravated  manslaujihter,  was  tried  and  executed  for  murder. 
His  dying  speech  is  one  of  the  most  curious  monuments  of  that 
age.  The  savage  spirit  which  had  brought  him  to  the  gallows 
remained  with  him  to  the  last.  Boasts  of  his  loyalty  and  abuse 
of  the  Whigs  were  mingled  with  the  parting  ejaculations  in  which 
he  commended  his  soul  to  the  divine  mercy.  An  idle  rumour 
had  been  circulated  that  his  wife  was  in  love  with  Dangerfield, 
who  was  eminently  handsome  and  renowned  for  gallantry.  The 
fatal  blow,  it  was  said,  had  been  prompted  by  jealousy.  The 
dying  husband,  with  an  earnestness,  half  ridiculous  half  pathet- 
ic, vindicated  the  lady's  character.  She  was,  he  said,  a  virtuous 
woman  :  she  came  of  a  loyal  stock,  and,  if  she  had  been  inclined 


442  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

to  break  her  marriage  vow,  would  at  least  have  selected  a  Tory 
and  a  churchman  for  her  paramour.  * 

About  the  same  time  a  culprit,  who  bore  very  little  resem« 
blance  to  Gates  or  Dangerfield,  appeared  on  the  floor  of  the 
Court  of  King's  Bench.  No  eminent  chief  of  a  party  has  ever 
passed  through  many  years  of  civil  and  religious  dissension 
with  more  innocence  than  Eichard  Baxter.  He  belonged  to 
the  mildest  and  most  temperate  section  of  the  Puritan  body. 
He  was  a  young  man  when  the  civil  war  broke  out.  He  thought 
that  the  right  was  on  the  side  of  the  Houses ;  and  he  had  nc 
scruple  about  acting  as  chaplain  to  a  regiment  in  the  parliamen- 
tary army  :  but  his  clear  and  somewhat  sceptical  understanding, 
and  his  strong  sense  of  justice,  preserved  him  from  all  excesses. 
He  exerted  himself  to  check  the  fanatical  violence  of  the  sol- 
diery. He  condemned  the  proceedings  of  the  High  Court  of 
Justice.  In  the  days  of  the  Commonwealth  he  had  the  boldness 
to  express,  on  many  occasions,  and  once  even  in  Cromwell's 
presence,  love  and  reverence  for  the  ancient  institutions  of  the 
country.  While  the  royal  family  was  in  exile,  Baxter's  life  was 
chiefly  passed  at  Kidderminster  in  the  assiduous  discharge  of 
parochial  duties.  He  heartily  concurred  in  the  Eestoration,  and 
was  sincerely  desirous  to  bring  about  an  union  between  Episco- 
palians and  Presbyterians.  For,  with  a  liberty  rare  in  his 
time,  he  considered  questions  of  ecclesiastical  polity  as  of  small 
account  when  compared  with  the  great  principles  of  Christianity, 
and  had  never,  even  when  prelacy  was  most  odious  to  theruhng 
powers,  joined  in  the  outcry  against  Bishops.  The  attempt  to 
reconcile  the  contending  factions  failed.  Baxter  cast  in  his  lot 
with  his  proscribed  friends,  refused  the  mitre  of  Hereford,  quitted 

*  Dangerfleld's  trial  was  not  reported  ;  but  I  have  seen  a  concise  account  of  it 
in  a  contemporary  broadside.  An  abstract  of  the  evidence  against  Francis,  and 
his  dying  speech,  will  be  fou  nd  in  the  Collection  of  State  Trials.  See  Eaehard, 
iii.  741.  Burnet's  narrative  contains  more  mistakes  than  lines.  See  also  North's 
Examen,  2oG,  the  sketch  of  Dangerfleld's  life  in  the  Bloody  Assizes,  the  Observator 
of  July  29,  1685,  and  the  poem  entitled  "Dangerfleld's  Ghost  to  Jeffreys."  In  the 
very  rare  volume  entitled  "  SucciTict  Genealogies,  by  Robert  Halstead,' '  Lord 
Pet«rbough  says  that  Dangerfield,  with  whom  he  had  had  some  intercourse,  was 
"  a  young  man  who  appeared  under  a  decent  figure,  a  serious  behaviour,  and  with 
words  that  did  not  seem  to  proceed  from  a  common  understanding." 


JAMES    THE    SECOND,  443 

the  parsonage  of  Kidderminster,  and  gave  himself  up  almost 
wholly  to  study.  His  theological  writings,  though  too  mod- 
erate to  be  pleasing  to  the  bigots  of  any  paitv,  had  an  im- 
mense reputation.  Zealous  Churchmen  called  him  a  Round- 
head ;  and  many  Nonconformists  accused  him  of  Erastianism 
and  Arminianism.  But  the  integrity  of  his  heart,  the  puiity^of 
his  life,  the  vigour  of  his  faculties,  and  the  extent  of  his  attain- 
ments were  acknowledged  by  the  best  and  wisest  men  of 
every  persuasion.  His  political  opinions,  in  spite  of  the  oppres- 
sion which  he  and  his  brethren  had  suffered,  were  moderate. 
He  was  friendly  to  that  small  party  which  was  hated  by  both 
Whigs  and  Tories.  He  could  not,  he  said,  join  in  cursing  the 
Trimmers,  when  he  remembered  who  it  was  that  had  blessed 
the  peacemakers.* 

In  a  Commentary  on  the  New  Testament  he  had  com- 
plained, with  some  "bitterness,  of  the  persecution  which  the 
Dissenters  suffered.  That  men  who,  for  not  using  the  Prayer 
Book,  had  been  driven  from  their  homes,  stripped  of  their 
property,  and  locked  up  in  dungeons,  should  dai-e  to  utter  a 
murmur,  was  then  thought  a  high  crime  against  the  State 
and  the  Church.  Roger  Lestrange,  the  champion  of  the  govern- 
ment and  the  oracle  of  the  clergy,  sounded  the  note  ot  war  in 
the  Observator.  An  info  nation  was  filed.  Baxter  begged 
that  he  might  be  allowed  s  me  time  to  prepare  for  his  defence. 
It  was  on  the  day  on  whicn  Oates  was  pilloried  in  Palace  Yard 
that  the  illustrious  chief  of  the  Puritans,  oppressed  by  age  and 
infirmities,  came  to  AYestminster  Hall  to  make  this  request. 
Jeffreys  burst  into  a  storm  of  rage.  "  Not  a  minute,"  he  cried, 
"  to  save  his  life.  I  can  deal  with  saints  as  well  as  with  sin- 
ners. There  stands  Oates  on  one  side  of  the  pillory ;  and,  if 
Baxter  stood  on  the  other,  the  two  greatest  rogues  in  the  king- 
dom would  stand  together." 

When  the   trial  came  on  at  Guildhall,  a  crowd  of  ttiose  who 
loved  and  honoured  Baxter  filled  the  court.     At  his  side  stood 


*  Baxter's  prt     ee  to  SirMathew  Hale's  Judgment  of  the  Nature  of  True  Ba- 
li gion,  l'684. 


444  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Doctor  "William  Bates,  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  the  Noncon- 
formist divines.  Two  Whig  barristers  of  great  note,  Pollexfen 
and  Wallop,  appeared  for  the  defendant.  Pollexfen  had  scarcely 
begun  his  address  to  the  jury,  when  the  Chief  Justice  broke 
forth  :  "  Pollexfen,  I  know  you  well.  I  will  set  a  mark  on  you. 
You  are  the  patron  of  the  faction.  This  is  an  old  rogue, 
a  schismatical  knave  a  hypocritical  villain.  He  hates  the 
Liturgy.  He  would  have  nothing  but  longwinded  cant  without 
book ;"  and  then  his  Lordship  turned  up  his  eyes,  clasped  his 
hands,  and  began  to  sing  through  his  nose,  in  imitation  of  what 
he  supposed  to  be  Baxter's  style  of  praying  "  Lord,  we  ai-e  thy 
people,  thy  peculiar  people,  thy  dear  people."  Pollexfen  gently 
remindetl  the  court  that  his  late  Majesty  had  thought  Baxter 
deserving  of  a  bishopric.  "  And  what  ailed  the  old  blockhead 
then,"  cried  Jeffreys,  "  that  he  did  not  take  it  ?"  His  fury  now 
rose  almost  to  madness.  He  called  Baxter  a  dog,  and  swore  that 
it  would  be  no  more  than  justice  to  whip  such  a  villain  through 
the  whole  City. 

Wallop  interposed,  but  fared  no  better  than  his  leader. 
*'  You  ai'e  in  all  these  dirty  causes,  Mr.  Wallop,"  said  the  Judge. 
"  Gentlemen  of  the  long  robe  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  assist 
such  factious  knaves."  The  advocate  made  another  attempt  to 
obtain  a  hearing,  but  to  no  purpose.  "  If  you  do  not  know 
your  duty,"  said  Jeffreys,  "  I  will  teach  it  you." 

Wallop  sate  down  ;  and  Baxter  himself  attempted  to  put  in  a 
word.  But  the  Chief  Justice  drowned  all  expostulation  in  a 
torrent  of  ribaldry  and  invective,  mingled  with  scraps  of  Hudibras. 
"  My  Lord,"  said  the  old  man,  "  I  have  been  much  blamed  by 
Dissenters  for  speaking  respectfully  of  Bishops."  "  Baxter  for 
Bishops  I"  cried  the  Judge,  "  that's  a  merry  conceit  indeed. 
I  know  what  you  mean  by  Bishops,  rascals  like  yourself, 
Kidderminster  Bishops,  factious  snivelling  Presbyterians !" 
Again  Baxter  essayed  to  speak,  and  again  Jeffreys  bellowed 
"  Richard,  Richard,  dost  thou  think  we  will  let  thee  poison  the 
court?  Richard,  thou  art  an  old  knave.  Thou  hast  written 
books  enough  to  load  a  cart,  and  every  book  as  full  of  sedition 
as  an  egg  is  full  of  meat.     By  the  grace  of  God,  I'll  look  after 


JAMES    THE    SECOND  445 

thee.  I  see  a  great  many  of  your  brotherhood  waiting  to  know 
what  will  befall  their  mighty  Don.  And  there,"  he  continued, 
fixing  his  savage  eye  on  Bates,  "  there  is  a  Doctor  of  the  party 
at  your  elbow.  But,  by  the  grace  of  God  Almighty,  I  will 
crush  you  all." 

Baxter  held  his  peace.  But  one  of  the  junior  counsel  for 
the  defence  made  a  last  effort,  and  undertook  to  show  that  the 
words  of  which  complaint  was  made  would  not  bear  the  construc- 
tion put  on  them  by  the  information.  With  this  view  he  began 
to  reac^  the  context.  In  a  moment  he  was  roared  down.  "  You 
sha'n't  turn  the  court  into  a  conventicle."  The  noise  of 
weeping  was  heard  from  some  of  those  who  surrounded  Baxter. 
"  Snivelling  calves  !  "  said  the  Judge. 

Witnesses  to  character  were  in  attendance,  and  among  them 
were  several  clergymen  of  the  Established  Church.  But  the 
Chief  Justice  would  hear  nothing.  "  Does  your  Lordship 
think,"  said  Baxter,  "  that  any  jury  will  convict  a  man  on 
such  a  trial  as  this  ? "  "I  warrant  you,  Mr.  Baxter,"  said 
Jeffreys  :  "  don't  trouble  yourself  about  that."  Jeffreys  was 
right.  The  Sheriffs  were  the  tools  of  the  government.  The 
jurymen,  selected  by  the  Sheriffs  from  among  the  fiercest  zeal- 
ots of  the  Tory  party,  conferred  for  a  moment,  and  returned  a 
verdict  of  Guilty.  "  My  Lord,"  said  Baxter,  as  he  left  the 
court,  "  there  was  once  a  Chief  Justice  who  would  have  treated 
me  very  differently."  He  alluded  to  his  learned  and  virtuous 
friend  Sir  Matthew  Hale.  "  There  is  not  an  honest  man  in 
England,"  answered  Jeffreys,  "but  looks  on  thee  as  a 
knave."  * 

The  sentence  was,  for  those  times,  a  lenient  one.  What 
passed  in  conference  among  the  judges  cannot  be  certainly 
known.  It  was  believed  among  the  Nonconformists,  and  is 
highly  probable,  that  the  Chief  Justice  was  overruled  by  his 
three  brethren.     He  proposed,  it  is  said,  that   Baxter  should 

*  See  the  Oliservator  of  February  25, 1685,  the  information  in  the  Collection  of 
State  Trials,  the  account  of  what  passed  in  court  given  by  Calaniy,  Life  of  Bax- 
ter, chap,  xiv.,  and  the  very  curious  extracts  from  the  Baxter  MSS.  in  the  Life, 
by  Orme,  published  in  1830. 


^46  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

be  whipped  through  London  at  the  cart's  tail.  The  majority 
thought  that  an  eminent  divine,  who,  a  quar'ter  of  a  century 
before,  had  been  offered  a  mitre,  and  who  was  now  in  his 
seventieth  year,  would  be  sufficiently  punished  for  a  few  sharp 
words  by  fine  and  imprisonment.* 

The  manner  in  which  Baxter  ^vas  treated  by  a  judge,  wlio 
was  a  memlier  of  the  cabinet  and  a  favourite  of  the  Sove- 
reign, indicated,  in  a  manner  not  to  be  mistaken,  the  feeling 
with  which  the  government  at  this  time  regarded  the  Pro- 
testant Nonconformists.  But  already  that  feeling  had  been 
indicated  by  still  stronger  and  more  terril)l8  signs.  The  Par- 
liament of  Scotland  had  met.  James  liad  purposely  hastened 
the  session  of  this  body,  and  had  postponed  the  session  of 
the  English  Houses,  in  the  hope  that  the  example  set  at 
Edinburgh  would  produce  a  good  effect  at  Westminster.  For 
the  legislature  of  his  northern  kingdom  was  as  obsequious  as 
those  provincial  Estates  which  Lewis  the  Fourteenth  still  suf- 
fered to  play  at  some  of  their  ancient  functions  in  Britanny  and 
Burgundy.  None  but  an  Episcopalian  could  sit  in  the  Scottish 
Parliament,  or  could  even  vote  for  a  member,  and  in  Scotland 
an  Episcopalian  was  always  a  Tory  or  a  timeserver.  From  an 
assembly  thus  constituted,  little  opposition  to  the  royal  wishes 
was  to  be  apprehended ;  and  even  the  assembly  thus  constitu 
ted  could  pass  no  law  which  had  not  been  previously  approved 
by  a  committee  of  courtiers. 

All  that  the  government  asked  was  readily  granted.  Tn  a 
financial  point  of  view,  indeed,  the  liberality  of  the  Scottish  Es- 
tates was  of  little  consequence.  They  gave,  however,  what  their 
scanty  means  permitted.  They  annexed  in  perpetuity  to  the 
crown  tlie  duties  which  had  been  granted  to  the  late  King,  and 
which  in  his  time  had  been  estimated  at  forty  thousand  pounds 
sterling  a  year.  They  also  settled  on  .James  for  life  an  addi- 
tional annual  income  of  two  hundred  and  sixteen  thousand  pounds 
Scots,  equivalent  to  eighteen  thousand  pounds  sterling.  The 
whole  sum  which  they   were  able  to   bestow  was  about    sixty 

*  Baxter  MS.  cited  by  Orme, 


JAMES   THE    SECOND.  447 

thousand  a  year,  little  more  than   what   was  poured  into  the 
English  Exchequer  every  fortnight.* 

Having  little  money  to  give,  the  Estates  supplied  the 
defect  by  loyal  professions  and  barbarous  statutes.  The  King, 
in  a  letter  which  was  read  to  them  at  the  opening  of  their  ses- 
sion, called  on  them  in  vehement  language  to  provide  new  pe- 
nal laws  against  the  refractory  Presbyterians,  and  expressed  his 
regret  that  business  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  propose  such 
laws  in  person  from  the  throne.  His  commands  were  obeyed. 
A  statute  framed  by  his  ministers  was  promptly  passed,  a  stat- 
ute which  stands  forth  even  among  the  statutes  of  that  unhappy 
country  at  that  unhappy  period,  preeminent  in  atrocity.  It  was 
enacted,  in  few  but  emphatic  words,  that  whoever  should  preach 
in  a  conventicle  under  a  roof,  or  should  attend,  either  as  preacher 
or  as  hearer,  a  conventicle  in  the  open  air,  should  be  punished 
with  death  and  confiscation  of  property.! 

This  law,  passed  at  the  King's  instance  by  an  assembly  devoted 
to  his  will,  deserves  especial  notice.  For  he  has  been  frequent- 
ly represented  by  ignorant  writers  as  a  prince  rash,  indeed, 
and  injudicious  in  his  choice  of  means,  but  intent  on  one  of  the 
noblest  ends  which  a  ruler  can  pursue,  the  establishment  of 
entire  religious  liberty.  Nor  can  it  be  denied  that  some  portions 
of  his  life,  when  detached  from  the  rest  and  superficially  con- 
sidered, seem  to  warrant  this  favourable  view  of  his  character. 

While  a  subject  he  had  been,  during  many  years,  a  persecuted 
man  ;  and  persecution  had  produced  its  usual  effect  on  him.  His 
mind,  dull  and  narrow  as  it  was,  had  profited  under  that  sharp 
discipline.  While  he  was  excluded  from  the  Court,  from  the 
Admiralty,  and  from  the  Council,  and  was  in  danger  of  being 
also  excluded  from  the  throne,  only  because  he  could  not  help 
believing  in  tran substantiation  and  in  the  authority  of  the  see  of 
Rome,  he  made  such  rapid  progress  in  the  doctrines  of  toleration 
that  he  left  Milton  and  Locke  behind.  What,  he  often  said,  could 
be  more  unjust,  than  to  visit  speculations  with  penalties  which 

•  Act  Pari.  Car.  H.  March  29,  1661;  Jac.  VII.  April  28,  1685,  and  May  13,  1685. 
t  Act  Pari.  Jac.  VII.  May  8,  1685  ;  Observator,  June  20, 1685  ;    Lestrange  evi- 
dently wished  to  see  the  precedent  followed  in  England. 


44S  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

ought  to  be  reserved  for  acts  ?  What  more  impolitic  than  to 
reject  the  services  of  good  soldiers,  seamen,  lawyers,  diplo- 
matists, financiers,  because  they  hold  unsound  opinions  about 
the  number  of  the  sacraments  or  the  pluripresence  of  saints  ? 
He  learned  by  rote  those  commonplaces  which  all  sects  repeat 
so  fluently  when  they  are  enduring  oppression,  and  forget  so 
easily  when  they  are  able  to  retaliate  it.  Indeed  he  rehearsed 
his  lesson  so  well,  that  those  who  chanced  to  hear  him  on  this 
subject  gave  him  credit  for  much  more  sense  and  much  readier 
elocution  than  he  really  possessed.  His  professions  imposed 
on  some  charitable  persons,  and  perhaps  imposed  on  him- 
self. But  his  zeal  for  the  rights  of  conscience  ended  with 
the  predominance  of  the  Whig  party.  When  fortune  changed, 
when  he  was  no  longer  afraid  that  others  would  persecute  him, 
when  he  had  it  in  his  power  to  persecute  others,  his  real  pro- 
pensities began  to  show  themselves.  He  hated  the  Puritan  sects 
with  a  manifold  hatred,  theological  and  political,  hereditary  and 
personal.  He  regarded  them  as  the  foes  of  Heaven,  as  the  foes 
of  all  legitimate  authority  in  Church  and  State,  as  his  great- 
grandmother's  foes  and  his  grandfather's,  his  father's  and  his 
mother's,  his  brother's  and  his  own.  Pie,  who  had  complain- 
ed so  loudly  of  the  laws  against  Papists,  now  declared  him- 
self unable  to  conceive  how  men  could  have  the  impudence  to 
propose  the  repeal  of  the  laws  against  Puritans.*  He,  whose 
favourite  theme  had  been  the  injustice  of  requiring  civil  func- 
tionaries to  take  religious  tests,  established  jn  Scotland,  when  he 
resided  there  as  Viceroy,  the  most  rigorous  religious  test  that 
has  ever  been  known  in  the  empire. f  He,  who  had  expressed 
just  indignation  when  the  priests  of  his  own  faith  were  hanged 
and  quartered,  amused  himself  with  hearing  Covenanters  shriek 
and  seeing  them  writhe  while  their  knees  were  beaten  flat  in 
the  boots.l     In  this  mood  he  became  King-;  and  he  immediately 

*  His  own  words  reported  by  himself.  Life  of  James  the  Second,  i.  666.  Orig. 
Mem. 

t  Act  Pari.  Car.  IL  August  3t.  1681. 

t  Burnet,  i.  583  ; 'Wodrow,  III.  v.  2.  Unfortunately  the  Acta  of  the  Scottish 
Privy  Council  during  almost  the  whole  administration  of  the  Buke  of  York  ax9 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  449 

demanded  and  obtained  from  the  obsequioas  Estates  of  Scotland 
as  the  surest  pledge  of  their  loyalty,  the  most  sanguinary  law 
that  has  ever  in  our  island  been  enacted  against  Protestant 
Nonconformists. 

With  this  law  the  whole  spirit  of  his  administration  was  in 
perfect  harmony.  The  fiery  persecution,  which  had  raged 
when  he  ruled  Scotland  as  vicegerent,  waxed  hotter  than  ever 
from  the  day  on  which  he  became  sovereign.^  Those  shires  m 
which  the  Covenanters  were  most  numerous  were  given  up  to 
the  license  of  the  army.  With  the  army  was  mingled  a  militia, 
composed  of  the  most  violent  and  profligate  of  those  who  called 
themselves  Episcopalians.  Preeminent  among  the  bands  which 
oppressed  and  wasted  these  unhappy  districts  were  the  dra- 
goons commanded  by  John  Graham  of  Claverhouse.  The 
story  ran  that  these  wicked  men  used  in  their  revels  to  play  at 
the  torments  of  hell,  and  to  call  each  other  by  the  names  of 
devils  and  damned  souls.*  The  chief  of  this  Tophet,  a  soldier 
of  distinguished  courage  and  professional  skill,  but  rapacious 
and  profane,  of  violent  temper  and  of  obdurate  heart,  has  left 
a  name  which,  wherever  the  Scottish  race  is  settled  on  the 
face  of  the  globe,  is  mentioned  with  a  peculiar  energy  of  hatred. 
To  recapitulate  all  the  crimes,  by  which  this  man,  and  men  like 
him,  goaded  the  peasantry  of  the  Western  Lowlands  into  mad- 
ness, would  be  an  endless  task.  A  few  instances  must 
suffice ;  and  all  those  instances  shall  be  taken  from  the  his- 
tory of  a  single  fortnight,  that  very  fortnight  in  which  the 
Scottish  Parliament,  at  the  urgent  request  of  James,  enacted  a 
new  law  of  unprecedented  severity  against  Dissenters. 
^  John  Brown,  a  poor  carrier  of  Lanarkshire,  was,  for  his 
singular  piety,  commonly  called  the  Christian  carrier.  Many 
years  later,  when  Scotland  enjoyed  rest,  prosperity,  and  reli- 
gious freedom,  old  men  who  remembered  the  evil  days  described 

wanting.  (1848.)  "fhis  assertion  has  been  met  by  a  direct  contradiction.  But  the 
fact  ia  exactly  as  I  >javd  stated  it.  There  is  in  he  A  eta  of  the  Scottish  Privy  Coun- 
cil a  hiatus  extendiiig  from  August  1678  to  August  1682.  The  Duiie  of  York  began 
to  reside  in  Scotlancl  in  December  1679.  Ho  left  Scotland,  never  to  return  iu  May 
1682.  (1857. 

•  Wodrow,  III.  U.  «, 

29 


450  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

him  as  one  versed  in  divine  things,  blameless  in  life,  and  so 
peaceable  that  the  tyrants  could  find  no  offence  in  him  except 
that  he  absented  himself  from  the  public  worship  of  the  Epis-  • 
copalians.  On  the  first  of  May  he  was  cutting  turf,  when  he 
was  seized  by  Claverhouse's  dragoons,  rapidly  examired,  con- 
victed  of  nonconformity,  and  sentenced  to  death.  It  is  said 
that,  even  among  the  soldiers,  it  was  not  easy  to  find  an  execu- 
tioner. For  the  wife  of  the  poor  man  was  present ;  she  led  one 
little  child  by  the  hand  :  it  was  easy  to  see  that  she  was  about 
to  give  birth  to  another  ;  and  even  those  wild  and  hardhearted 
men,  who  nicknamed  one  another  Beelzebub  and  Apollyon, 
shrank  from  the  great  wickedness  of  butchering  her  husband 
before  her  face.  The  prisoner,  meanwhile,  raised  above  him- 
self by  the  near  prospect  of  eternity,  prayed  loud  and  fervently 
as  one  inspired,  till  Claverhouse,  in  a  fury,  shot  him  dead.  It 
was  reported  by  credible  witnesses  that  the  widow  cried  out  in 
her  agony,  "  Well,  sir,  well ;  the  day  of  reckoning  will  come  ;  " 
and  that  the  murderer  replied,  "  To  man  I  can  answer  for  what 
I  have  done ;  and  as  for  God,  I  will  take  him  into  mine  own 
hand."  Yet  it  was  rumoured  that  even  on  his  seared  conscience 
and  adamantine  heart  the  dying  ejaculations  of  his  victim  made 
an  impression  which  was  never  effaced.* 

On  the  fifth  of  May  two  artisans,  Peter  Gillies  and  John 
Bryce,  wei-e  tried  in  Ayrshire  by  a  military  tribunal  consisting 
of  fifteen  soldiers.  The  indictmept  is  still  extant.  The  prison- 
ers were  charged,  not  with  any  act  of  rebellion,  but  with  hold- 
ing the  same  pernicious  doctrines  which  had  impelled  others  to 
rebel,  and  with  wanting  only  opportunity  to  act  upon  those 
aoctrines.  The  proceeding  was  summary.  In  a  few  hours 
the  two  culprits  were  convicted,  hanged,  and  flung  together 
into  a  hole  under  the  gallows. t 

*  "Wod>  ow.  III.  ix.  C.  The  editor  of  the  Oxford  edition  of  Burnet  attempts  to  ex- 
cuse this  act  l)y  alleging  that  Claverhouse  was  then  employed  to  intercept  all  com- 
muiiicatiou  between  Argyleand  Monmouth,  and  by  supposing  that  John  Brown 
may  have  been  detected  in  conveying  intelligence  between  the  rebel  camps.  Un- 
fortunately for  this  hypothesis  John  Brown  was  shot  on  the  first  of  May,  when 
both  Argyie  and  Monmouth  were  in  Holland,  and  when  there  was  no  insurreo- 
tion  in  any  part  of  our  islaud, 

t  Wodrow,  III.  ix.  6. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  451 

The  eleventh  of  May  was  made  remarkable  by  more  than 
one  great  crime.  Some  rigid  Calvinists  bad  from  the  doctrine 
of  reprobation  drawn  the  consequence  that  to  pray  for  any 
person  who  had  been  predestined  to  perdition  was  an  act  of 
mutiny  against  the  eternal  decrees  of  the  Supreme  Being. 
Three  poor  labouring  men,  deeply  imbued  with  this  unamiable 
divinity,  were  stopped  by  an  officer  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Glasgow.  They  were  asked  whether  they  would  pray  for  King 
James  the  Seventh.  They  refused  to  do  so  except  under  the  con- 
dition that  he  was  one  of  the  elect.  A  file  of  musketeers  was 
drawn  out.  The  prisoners  knelt  down ;  they  were  blindfolded ; 
and  within  an  hour  after  they  had  been  arrested,  their  blood 
was  lapped  up  by  the  dogs.* 

While  this  was  done  in  Clydesdale,  an  act  not  less  horrible 
was  perpetrated  in  Eskdale.  One  of  the  proscribed  Covenan- 
ters, overcome  by  sickness,  had  found  shelter  in  the  house  of  a 
respectable  widow,  and  had  died  there.  The  corpse  was  dis- 
covered by  the  Laird  of  Wester  hall,  a  petty  tyrant  who  had,  in 
the  days  of  the  Covenant,  professed  inordinate  zeal  for  the 
Presbyterian  Church,  who  had,  since  the  Restoration,  purchased 
the  favour  of  the  government  by  apostasy,  and  who  felt  towards 
the  party  which  he  had  deserted  the   implacable   hatred  of  an 

*  Wodrow,  III.  ix.  6.  It  has  been  confidently  asserted,  by  persons  wholiave  not 
taken  the  trouble  to  1  ook  at  the  authority  to  which  I  liave  referred,  that  I  have  gross- 
ly calumniated  these  unfortunate  men  ;  that  I  do  not  understand  the  Calvinistic 
theology  ;  and  that  it  is  impossible  that  members  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  can 
have  refused  to  pray  for  any  man  on  the  ground  that  he  viras  not  one  of  the  elect. 

I  can  only  refer  to  the  narrative  which  Wodrow  has  inserted  in  his  history, 
and  which  he  justly  calls  plain  and  natural.  That  narrative  is  signed  by  two 
eyewitnesses,  and  Wodrow,  before  he  published  it,  submitted  it  to  a  third  eye- 
witness, who  pronounced  it  strictly  accurate.  From  that  narrative  I  will  ex- 
tract the  only  words  which  bear  on  the  point  in  question  :  "  When  all  the  three 
were  taken,  the  officers  consulted  among  themselves,  and,  withdrawing  to  the 
west  side  of  the  town,  questioned  the  prisoners,  particularly  if  they  would  pray 
for  King  James  VII.  They  answered,  they  would  pray  for  all  witliin  the  election 
of  grace.  Balfour  said  Do  you  question  the  King's  election  ?  They  answered, 
sometimes  they  questioned  their  own.  Upon  which  he  swore  dreadfully,  and 
said  they  should  die  presently,  because  they  would  not  pray  for  Christ's  vicegerent, 
and  so  without  one  word  more,  commanded  Thomas  Cook  to  go  to  his  prayers, 
for  he  should  die. 

In  this  narrative  Wodrow  saw  nothing  improbable  ;  and  I  shall  not  easily  be 
convinced  that  any  writer  now  living  understands  the  feelings  and  opiuious  of 
tJie  Ck)veiianters  better  than  Wodrow  did.  (1857.) 


452  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

apostate.  This  man  pulled  down  the  house  of  the  poor  woman, 
carried  away  her  furniture,  and,  leaving  her  and  her  younger 
children  to  wander  in  the  fields,  dragged  her  son  Andrew,  who 
was  still  a  lad,  before  Claverhouse,  who  happened  to  be  march- 
ing through  that  part  of  the  country.  Claverhouse  was  just 
then  strangely  lenient.  Some  thought  that  he  had  not  been 
quite  himself  since  tlie  death  of  the  Christian  carrier,  ten  days 
before.  But  Westerhall  was  eager  to  signalise  his  loyalty,  and 
extorted  a  sullen  consent.  The  guns  were  loaded,  and  the 
youth  was  told  to  pull  his  bonnet  over  his  face.  He  refused, 
and  stood  confronting  his  murderers  with  the  Bible  in  his  hand. 
"  I  can  look  you  in  the  face,"  he  said ;  "  I  have  done  nothing 
of  which  I  need  be  ashamed.  But  how  will  you  look  in  that 
day  when  you  shall  be  judged  by  what  is  written  in  this  book  ?  " 
He  fell  dead,  and  was  buried  in  the  moor.* 

On  the  same  day  two  women,  Margaret  Maclachlin  and  Mar- 
garet Wilson,  the  former  an  aged  widow,  the  latter  a  maiden 
of  eiofhteen,  suffered  death  for  their  religion  in  Wijjtonshire. 
They  were  offered  their  lives  if  they  would  consent  to  abjure 
the  cause  of  the  insurgent  Covenanters,  and  to  attend  tlie  Epis- 
copal worship.  They  refused  ;  and  they  were  s,entenced  to  be 
drowned.  They  were  carried  to  a  spot  which  the  Sol  way  over- 
flows twice  a  day,  and  were  fastened  to  stakes  fixed  in  the  sand 
between  high  and  low  water  mark.  The  elder  sufferer  was  placed 
near  to  the  advancing  flood,  in  the  hope  that  her  last  agonies  might 
terrify  the  younger  into  submission.  The  sight  was  dreadful.  But 
the  courage  of  the  survivor  was  sustained  by  an  enthusiasm  as 
lofty  as  any  that  is  recorded  in  martyrology.  She  saw  the  sea 
draw  nearer  and  nearer,  but  gave  no  sign  of  alarm.  She 
prayed  and  sang  verses  of  psalms  tiH  the  waves  choked  her 
voice.  After  she  had  tasted  the  bitterness  of  death,  she  was, 
by  a  cruel  mercy  unbound  and  restored  to  life.  When  she 
came  to  herself,  pitying  friends  and  neighbours  implored  her  to 
yield.  "  Dear  Margaret,  only  say,  God  save  the  King  !  "  The 
poor  girl,  true  to  her  stern  theology,  gasped  out,  "  May  God 
save  him,  if   it  be  God's  will !  "     Her  friends   crowded   round 

»  Wodrow,  III.  ix.  6    Cloud  of  Wituessea. 


JAMES    TIIF,  .SECOND.  453 

the  presiding  officer.  "  She  has  said  it ;  indeed,  sir,  she  has 
said  it."  "  Will  she  take  the  abjuration  ?  "  he  demanded. 
"  Never!  "  she  exclaimed.  "I  am  Christ's  :  let  me  go  !  "  And 
the  waters  closed  over  her  for  the  last  time.* 

Thus  was  Scotland  governed  by  that  prince  whom  ignoranf 
men  have  represented  as  a  frtend  of  religious  liberty,  whose 
misfortune  it  was  to  be  too  wise  and  too  sood  for  the  awe  in  which 
he  lived.  Nay,  even  those  laws  which  authorised  him  to  govern 
thus  were  in  his  judgment  reprehensibly  lenient.  While  his 
officers  were  committing  the  murders  which  have  just  been 
related,  he  was  urging  the  Scottish  Parliament  to  pass  a  new 
Act  compared  with  which  all  former  Acts  might  be  called 
merciful. 

In  England  his  authority,  though  great,  was  circumscribed  by 
ancient  and  noble  laws  which  even  the  Tories  would  not 
patiently  have  seen  him  infringe.  Here  he  could  not  hurry 
Dissenters  before  military  tribunals,  or  enjoy  at  Council  the 
luxury  of  seeing  them  swoon  in  the  boots.  Here  he  could  not 
drown  young  girls  for  refusing  to  take  the  abjuration,  or  shoot 
poor  countrymen  for  doubting  whether  he  was  one  of  the  elect. 
Yet  even  in  England  he  coiltinued  to  persecute  the  Puritans 
as  far  as  his  power  extended,  till  events  which  will  hereafter  be 
related  induced  him  to  form  the  design  of  uniting  Puritans  and 
Papists  in  a  coalition  for  the  humiliation  and  spoliation  of  the 
established  Church. 

One  sect  of  Protestant  Dissenters  indeed  he,  even  at  this 

early  period  of  his  reign,  regarded  with  some  tenderness,  the 

Society  of  Friends.     His  partiality  for  that  singular   fraternity 

cannot  be  attributed  to   religious   sympathy ;  for,  of  all   who 

acknowledge  the  divine   mission  of  Jesus,  the   Roman   Catholic 

and  the   Quaker  differ  most  widely.      It  may  seem  paradoxical 

to  say  that  this  very  circumstance  constituted  a  tie  between  the 

*  Wodrow,  III.  ix.  6.    The  epitaph  of  Margaret  Wilson,  in  the  churchyard  at 
Wigton,  is  printed  in  the  Appendix  to  the  Cloud  of  Witnesses  ; 

"  Murdered  for  owning  Christ  supreme 
Head  of  his  Church,  and  no  more  crime, 
But  her  not  owning  Prelacy, 
And  not  nhjurin^  Presbytery, 
Within  the  sea,  tied  to  a  stake, 
She  suffered  for  Christ  Jesus'  sake." 


454  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Roman  Catholic  and  the  Quaker ;  yet  such  was  really  the  case. 
For  they  deviated  in  opposite  directions  so  far  from  what  the 
great  body  of  the  nation  regarded  as  right,  that  even  liberal 
men  generally  considered  them  both  as  lying  beyond  the  pale 
of  the  largest  toleration.  Thus  the  two  extreme  sects,  precisely 
because  they  were  extreme  s^cts,  had  a  common  interest  dis- 
tinct from  the  interest  of  the  intermediate  sects.  The  Quakers 
were  also  guiltless  of  all  offence  against  James  and  his  House. 
They  had  not  been  in  existence  as  a  community  till  the  war 
between  his  father  and  the  Long  Parliament  was  drawing  to- 
wards a  close.  They  had  been  cruelly  persecuted  by  some  of 
the  revolutionary  governments.  They  had,  since  the  Restora- 
tion, in  spite  of  much  ill  usage,  submitted  themselves  meekly  to 
the  royal  authority.  For  they  had,  though  reasoning  on  prem- 
ises which  the  Anglican  divines  regarded  as  heterodox,  arrived, 
like  the  Anglican  divines,  at  the  conclusion,  that  no  excess  of 
tyranny  on  the  part  of  a  prince  can  justify  active  resistance  on 
the  part  of  a  subject.  No  libel  on  the  government  had  ever 
been  traced  to  a  Quaker.*  In  no  conspiracy  against  the  govern- 
ment had  a  Quaker  been  implicated.  The  society  had  not 
joined  in  the  clamour  for  the  Exelusion  Bill,  and  had  solemnly 
condemned  the  Rye  House  plot  as  a  hellish  design  and  a  work 
of  the  devil.f  Indeed,  the  friends  then  took  very  little  part  in 
civil  contentions  ;  for  they  were  not,  as  now,  congregated  in 
large  towns,  but  were  generally  engaged  in  agriculture,  a  pur- 
suit from  which  they  have  been  gradually  driven  by  the  vexa- 
tions consequent  on  their  strange  scruple  about  paying  tithe. 
They  were,  therefore,  far  removed  from  the  scene  of  political 
strife.  They  also,  even  in  domestic  privacy,  avoided  on  prin- 
ciple all  political  conversation.  For  such  conversation  was,  in 
their  opinion,  unfavourable  to  their  spirituality  of  mind,  and 
tended  to  disturb  the  austere  composure  of  their  deportment. 
The  yearly  meetings  of  that  age  repeatedly  admonished  tha 
brethren  not  to  hold  discourse  touching  affairs  of  state.  J     Even 

*See  the  letter  to  King  Charles  H.  prefixed  to  Barclays  Apology, 
t  Sewel'8  History  of  the  Quakers,  book  x. 
J  Miuutes  of  Yearly  Meetings,  1689, 1600, 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  455 

within  the  memory  of  persons  now  living  those  grave  elders 
who  retained  the  habits  of  an  earlier  generation  systematically 
discouraged  such  worldly  talk.*  It  was  natural  that  James 
should  make  a  wide  distinction  between  these  harmless  people 
and  those  fierce  and  reckless  sects  which  considered  resistance 
to  tyranny  as  a  Christian  duty  which  had,  in  Germany,  France, 
and  Holland,  made  war  on  legitimate  princes,  and  which  had, 
during  four  generations,  borne  peculiar  enmity  to  the  House  of 
Stuart. 

It  happened,  moreover,  that  it  was  possible  to  grant  large 
relief  to  the  Roman  Catholic  and  to  the  Quaker  without  mitb 
gating  the  sufferings  of  the  Puritan  sects.  A  law  was  in  forc« 
which  imposed  severe  penalties  on  every  person  who  refused  to 
take  the  oath  of  supremacy  when  required  to  do  so.  This  law 
did  not  affect  Presbyterians,  Independents,  or  Baptists  ;  for 
they  were  all  ready  to  call  God  to  witness  that  they  renounced 
all  spiritual  connection  with  foreign  prelates  and  potentates. 
But  the  Roman  Catholic  would  not  swear  that  the  Pope  had  no 
jurisdiction  in  England,  and  the  Quaker  would  not  swear  to 
anything.  On  the  other  hand,  neither  the  Roman  Catholic  no> 
the  Quaker  was  touched  by  the  Five  Mile  Act,  which,  of  all  the 
laws  in  the  Statute  Book,  was  perhaps  the  most  annoying  to  the 
Puritan  Nonconformists. f 

The  Quakers  had  a  powerful  and  zealous  advocate  at  court. 
Though,  as  a  class,  they  mixed  little  with  the  world,  and 
shunned  politics  as  a  pursuit  dangerous  to  their  spiritual  in- 
terests, one  of  them,  widely  distinguished  from  the  rest  by 
station  and  fortune,  lived  in  the  highest  circles,  and  had  con- 
stant access  to  the  royal  ear.  This  was  the  celebrated  William 
Penn.     His  father  had  held  great  naval  commands,  had  been  a 

*  Clarkson  on  Quakerism  ;  Peculiar  Customs,  chapter  v. 

t  After  this  passage  was  written,  I  found  in  the  British  Museunv,  a  manuscript 
(Harl.  MS.  7506)  entitled,  "An  Account  of  the  Seizures,  Sequestrations,  great 
Spoil  and  Havock  made  upon  the  Estates  of  the  several  Protestant  Dissenters 
called  Quakers,  upon  Prosecution  of  old  Statutes  made  against  Papist  and  Popish 
Recusants."  The  manuscript  is  marked  as  havin^belonged  to  James,  and  appears 
to  have  been' given  by  his  confidential  servant,  Colonel  Graham,  to  Lord  Oxford- 
This  circumstance  appears  to  me  to  confirm  the  view  which  I  have  taken  of  the 
King's  conduct  towards  the  Quakers. 


456  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Commissioner  of  the  Admiralty,  hatl  sate  in  Parliament,  had 
received  the  honour  of  knighthood,  and  had  been  encouraged 
to  expect  a  peerage.  The  son  had  been  liberally  educated, 
and  had  been  designed  for  the  profession  of  arras,  but  had, 
while  still  young,  injured  his  prospects  and  disgusted  his  friends 
by  joining  what  was  then  generally  considered  as  a  gang  of 
crazy  heretics.  He  had  been  sent  sometimes  to  the  Tower,  and 
sometimes  to  Newgate.  He  had  been  tried  at  the  Old  Bailey 
for  preaching  in  defiance  of  the  law.  After  a  time,  however, 
he  had  been  reconciled  to  his  family,  and  had  succeeded  in 
obtaining  such  powerful  protection  tliat,  while  all  the  gaols  of 
England  were  filled  with  his  brethren,  he  was  permitted,  during 
many  years,  to  profess  his  opinions  without  molestation. 
Towards  the  close  of  the  late  reign  he  had  obtained,  in  satisfac- 
tion of  an  old  debt  due  to  him  from  the  crown,  the  grant  of  an 
immense  region  in  North  America.  In  this  tract,  then  peopled 
only  by  Indian  hunters,  he  had  invited  his  persecuted  friends 
to  settle.  His  colony  was  still  in  its  infancy  when  James 
mounted  the  throne. 

Between  James  and  Penn  there  had  long  been  a  familiar  ac- 
quaintance. The  Quaker  now  became  a  courtier,  and  almost 
a  favourite.  He  was  every  day  summoned  from  the  gallery 
into  the  closet,  and  sometimes  had  long  audiences  while  peers 
were  kept  waiting  in  the  antechambers.  It  was  noised  abroad 
that  he  had  more  real  power  to  help  and  hurt  than  many  nobles 
who  filled  high  offices.  He  was  soon  surrounded  by  flatterers 
and  suppliants.  His  house  at  Kensington  was  sometimes 
thronged,  at  his  hour  of  rising,  by  more  than  two  hundred 
suitors.*  He  paid  dear,  however,  for  this  seeming  prosperity. 
Even  his  own  sect  looked  coldly  on  him,  and  requited  his 
services  with  obloquy.     He  was  loudly  accused  of  being  a  Papist, 

*  Penn's  visits  to  Whitehall,  and  levees  at  Kensington",  are  described  with  great 
vivacity,  though  in  very  bad  Latin,  by  Gerard  Croese.  "  Sumebat,"  he  says, 
"rex  ssepe  secretum.  non  horarium,  vero  horarum  plnrium,  in  quo  de  vaviis 
rebus  cum  Penno  serio  sermonem  conferebat,  et  interim  differebat  audire  prjecip- 
uorum  nobilium  ordinom,  qui  h«c  interim  spatio  in  proeoetone,  in  proximo,  regem 
conventum  prsesto  erant."  Of  the  crowd  of  suitors  at  Penn's  house,- Croese  says. 
"  Visi  quandoque  de  hoc  genere  hominum  non  minus  bis  centum."— HistoriaQua- 
keriana,  lib.  ii.  1695. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  457 

nay,  a  Jesuit.  Some  affirmed  that  he  had  been  educated  at  St. 
Omers,  and  others  that  he  had  been  ordained  at  Rome.  These 
calumnies,  indeed,  could  find  credit  only  with  the  undiscerning 
multitude ;  but  with  these  calumnies  were  mingled  accusations 
much  better  fovuided. 

m 

To  speak  the  whole  truth  concerning  Penn  is  a  task  which 
requires  some  courage  ;  for  he  is  rather  a  mythical  than  a 
historical  person.  Rival  nations  and  hostile  sects  have  agreed 
in  canonising  him.  England  is  pFoud  of  his  name.  A  great 
commonwealth  beyond  the  Atlantic  regards  him  with  a  rever- 
ence similar  to  that  which  the  Athenians  felt  for  Theseus,  and 
the  Romans  for  Quirinus.  The  respectable  society  of  which  he 
was  a  member  honours  him  as  an  apostle.  By  pious  men  of 
other  persuasions  he  is  generally  regarded  as  a  bright  pattern 
of  Christian  virtue.  Meanwhile  admirers  of  a  very  different 
sort  have  sounded  his  praises.  The  French  philosophers  of  the 
eighteenth  century  pardoned  what  they  regarded  as  his  super- 
stitious fancies  in  consideration  of  his  contempt  for  priests,  and 
of  his  cosmopolitan  benevolence,  impartially  extended  to  all 
races  and  to  all  creeds.  His  name  has  thus  become,  throughout 
all  civilised  countries,  a  synonyme  for  probity  and  philanthropy. 

Nor  is  this  high  reputation  altogether  unmerited,  Penn  was 
without  doubt  a  man  of*  eminent  virtues.  He  had  a  strong 
sense  of  religious  duty  and  a  fervent  desire  to  promote  the  hap- 
piness of  mankirtd.  On  one  or  two  points  of  high  importance, 
he  had  notions  more  correct  than  were,  in  his  day,  common 
even  among  men  of  enlarged  minds  :  and  as  the  proprietor  and 
legislator  of  a  province  which,  being  almost  uninhabited  when 
it  came  into  his  possession,  afforded  a  clear  field  for  moral  ex- 
periments, he  had  the  rare  good  fortune  of  being  able  to  carry 
his  theories  into  practice  without  any  compromise,  and  yet'with- 
out  any  shock  to  existing  institutions.  He  will  always  be  men- 
tioned with  honour  as  a  founder  of  a  colony,  who  did  not,  in  his 
dealings  with  a  savage  people,  abuse  the  strength  derived  from 
civilisation,  and  as  a  lawgiver  who,  in  an  age  of  persecution, 
made  religious  liberty  the  corner  stone  of  a  polity.  But  his 
writings  and  his  life  furnish  abundant  proofs  that  he  was  not  a 


458  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

man  of  strong  sense.  He  had  no  skill  in  reading  the  character? 
of  others.  His  confidence  in  persons  less  virtuous  than  himself 
led  him  into  great  errors  and  misfortunes.  His  enthusiasm  for 
one  great  principle  sometimes  impelled  him  to  violate  other 
great  principles  which  he  ought  to  have  held  sacred.  Nor  was 
his  rectitude  altogether  proof  against  the  temptations  to  which 
it  was  exposed  in  that  splendid  and  polite,  but  deeply  corrupted 
society,  with  which  he  now  mingled.  The  whole  court  was  in 
a  ferment  with  intrigues  of  gallantry  and  intrigues  of  ambition. 
The  traffic  in  honours,  places,  and  pardons  was  incessant.  It 
was  natural  that  a  man  who  was  daily  seen  at  the  palace,  and 
who  was  known  to  have  free  access  to  majesty,  should  be  fre- 
quently importuned  to  use  his  influence  for  purposes  which  a 
rigid  morality  must  condemn.  The  integrity  of  Penn  had  stood 
firm  against  obloquy  and  persecution.  But  now,  attacked  by 
royal  smiles,  by  female  blandishments,  by  the  insinuating  elo- 
quence and  delicate  flattery  of  veteran  diplomatists  and  courtiers, 
his  resolution  began  to  give  way.  Titles  and  jihrases  against 
which  he  had  often  borne  his  testimony  dropped  occasionally 
from  his  lips  and  his  pen.  It  would  be  well  if  he  had  been 
guilty  of  nothing  worse  than  such  compliances  with  the  fashions 
of  the  world.  Unhappily  it  cannot  be  concealed  that  he  bore 
a  chief  part  in  some  transactions  condemned,  not  merely  by  the 
rigid  code  of  the  society  to  which  he  belonged,  but  by  the  gen- 
eral sense  of  all  honest- men.  He  afterwards  solemnly  protest- 
ed that  his  hands  were  pure  from  illicit  gain,  and  that  he  had 
never  received  any  gratuity  from  those  whom  he  had  obliged, 
though  he  might  easily,  while  his  influence  at  court  lasted,  have 
made  a  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  pounds.*  To  this  asser- 
tion full  credit  is  due.  But  bribes  may  be  offered  to  vanity  as 
well  £fs  to  cupidity ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  Penn  was 
cajoled  into  bearing  a  part  in  some  unjustifiable  transactions  of 
which  others  enjoyed  the  profits. 

The  first  use  which  he  made  of  his  credit  was  highly  com- 
mendable.     He   strongly   represented    the   sufferings   of    his 

*  "  Twenty  thousand  into  my  pocket ;    and  a  hundred  thousand  into  my 
province." — Penn's  Letter  to  Popple." 


JAMES    THE    SECOND,  459 

brethren  to  the  new  King,  who  saw  with  pleasure  that  it  was 
possible  to  grant  indulgence  to  these  quiet  sectaries  and  to  the 
Roman  Catholics,  without  showing  similar  favour  to  other 
classes  which  were  then  under  persecution.  A  list  was  framed 
of  prisoners  against  whom  proceedings  had  been  instituted  for 
not  taking  the  oaths,  or  for  not  going  to  church,  and  of  whose 
loyalty  certificates  had  been  produced  to  the  government.  These 
persons  were  discharged,  and  orders  were  given  that  no  similar 
proceeding  should  be  instituted  till  the  royal  pleasure  should  be 
further  signified.  In  this  way  about  fifteen  hundred  Quakers, 
and  a  still  greater  number  of  Roman  Catholics,  regained  their 
liberty.* 

And  now  the  time  had  arrived  when  the  English  Parliament 
was  to  meet.  The  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  who 
had  repaired  to  the  capital  were  so  numerous  that  there  was 
much  doubt  whether  their  chamber,  as  it  was  then  fitted  up, 
would  afford  sufficient  accommodation  for  them.  They  em- 
ployed the  days  which  immediately  preceded  the  opening  of  the 
session  in  talking  over  public  affairs  with  each  other  and  with 
the  agents  of  the  government.  A  great  meeting  of  the  loyal 
party  was  held  at  the  Fountain  Tavern  in  the  Strand;  and 
Roger  Lestrange,  who  had  recently  been  knighted  by  the  King, 
and  returned  to  Parliament  by  the  city  of  Winchester,  took  a 
leading  part  in  their  consultations. f 

It  soon  appeared  that  a  large  portion  of  the  Commons  had 
views  which  did  not  altogether  airree  with  those  of  the  Court. 
The  Tory  country  gentlemen  were,  with  scarcely  one  exception, 
desirous  to  maintain  the  Test  Act  and  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act ; 
and  some  among  them  talked  of  voting  the  revenue  only  for  a 
term  of  years.  But  they  were  perfectly  ready  to  enact  severe 
laws  against  the  Whigs,  and  would  gladly  have  seen  all  the  sup- 

*  These  orders,  signed  by  Sunderland,  will  be  found  in  Sewel's  History.  They 
bear  date  April  18,1685.  They  are  written  in  a  style  singularly  obscure  and  intri- 
cate ;  but  I  think  that  I  have  exhibited  the  meaning  correctly.  I  have  not  been 
able  to  find  any  proof  that  any  person,  not  a  Roman  Catholic  or  a  Quaker,  re- 
gained his  freedom  under  these  orders.  See  Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans,  vol. 
ii.  chap.  ii. ;  Gerard  Croese,  lib.  ii.  Croese  estimates  the  number  of  Quakers  liber- 
ated at  fourteen  hundred  and  sixty. 
May  28, 

+  Barillon,  j-^^^  1685.    Observatof ,  May  27, 1685  ;  Sir  J.  Reresby's  Memoirs. 


460  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

I>orters  of  the  Exclusion  Bill  made  incapable  of  holding  office. 
The  King,  on  the  other  hand,  desired  to  obtain  from   the  Par- 
liament a  revenue  for  life,  the  admission  of  Roman  Catholics  to 
office,  and  the  repeal  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act.     On  these 
three  objects  his   heart  was  set ;  and  he  was  by  no  means  dis- 
posed  to  accept   as  a  substitute   for  them   a  penal  law   against 
Exclusionists.     Such  a  law,  indeed,  would  have  been  positively 
unpleasing  to  him  ;  for  one  class  of  Exclusionists  stood  liigh  in 
his  favourj  that  class  of  which  Sunderland  was  the  representa- 
tive, that  class  which  had  joined  the  Whigs  in  the  days  of  the 
plot,  merely  because  the  Whigs  were  predominant,  and  which 
had  changed  with  the  change  of  fortune.     James  justly  regarded 
these  renesrades  as-  the  most   serviceable  tools   that  he  could 
employ.       It  was  not  from  the  stouthearted  Cavaliers,  who  had 
been  true  to   him  in  his   adversity,  that  he  could  expect  abject 
and  unscrupulous   obedience  in  his  prosperity.     The  men  who, 
impelled,  not  by  zeal  for  liberty  or  for  religion,  but  merely  by 
selfish   cupidity  and   selfish  fear,  had  assisted  to   oppress  him 
when  he   was  weak,  were   the  very  men  who,  impelled  by  the 
same  cupidity  and  the  same   fear,  would  assist  him  to  oppress 
his  people   now  that  he   was  strong.*     Though  vindictive,  he 
was  not  indiscriminately  vindictive.     Not  a  single  instance  can 
be  mentioned  in  which   he   showed  a  generous    compassion  to 
those  who  had  opposed  him   honestly  and  on  public  grounds. 
But  he  frequently  spared  and  promoted  those  whom  some  vile 
motive  had  induced  to  injure  him.     For  tliat  meanness  which 
marked  them  out  as  fit  implements  of  tyranny  was  so  precious 
in  his  estimation  that  he  regarded  it  with  some  indulgence  even 
when  it  was  exhibited  at  his  own  expense. 

The  King's  wishes  were  communicated  through  several 
channels  to  the  Tory  members  of  the  Lower  House.  The  ma- 
jority was  easily  persuaded  to  forego  all  thoughts  of  a  penal 
law  against  the  Exclusionists,  and  to  consent  that  His  Majesty 
should  have  the  revenue  for  life.     But  about  the   Test  Act  and 

*  Lewis  wrote  to  Barilloii  about  this  class  of  Exclusionists  as  follows  :  "  L'iu- 
terSt  qu'ils  auront  k  effacer  cette  t&.che  par  des  services  considerables  les  portera, 
selon  toutes  les  apparences,  k  le  servir  plus  utilement  que  ne  pourraient  faire 
ceux  qui  ont  toujours  ete  les  plus  attaches  i'sa  personne."    May  15-26  1685. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  461 

the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  the  emissaries  of  the  Court  could  ob- 
tain no  satisfactory  assurances.* 

Ou  the  nineteenth  of  May  the  session  was  opened.  The 
oenches  of  the  Commons  presented  a  singular  spectacle.  That 
great  party,  which,  in  the  last  three  Parliaments,  had  been  pre- 
dominant, had  now  dwindled  to  a  pitiable  minority,  and  was 
indeed  little  more  than  a  fifteenth  part  of  the  House.  Of  the 
five  hundred  and  thirteen  knights  and  burgesses  only  a  hun- 
dred and  thirty-five  had  ever  sate  in  that  place  before.  It 
is  evident  that  a  body  of  men  so  raw  and  inexperienced  must 
have  been,  in  some  important  qualities,  far  below  the  average 
of  our  representative  assemblies. f 

The  management  of  the  House  was  confided  by  James  to 
two  peei's  of  the  kingdom  of  Scotland.  Ona  of  them,  Charles 
Middleton,  Earl  of  Middleton,  after  holding  high  office  at  P^din- 
burgh,  had,  shortly  before  the  death  of  the  late  King,  been 
sworn  of  the  English  Privy  Council,  and  appointed  one  of  the 
Secretaries  of  State.  With  him  was  joined  Richard  Graham, 
Viscount  Preston,  who  had  long  held  the  post  of  Envoy  at 
Versailles. 

The  first  business  of  the  Commons  was  to  elect  a  Speaker. 
Who  should  be  the  man,  was  a  question  which  had  been  much 
debated  in  the  cabinet.  Guildford  had  recommended  Sir 
Thomas  Meres,  who,  like  himself,  ranked  among  the  Trimmers. 
Jeffreys,  who  missed  no  opportunity  of  crossing  the  Lord 
Keeper,  had  pressed  the  claims  of  Sir  John  Trevor.  Trevor 
had  been  bred  half  a  pettifogger  and  half  a  gambler,  had  brought 
to  political  life  sentiments  and  principles  worthy  of  both  his 
callings,  had  become  a  parasite  of  the  Chief  Justice,  and  could, 
on  occasion,  imitate,  not  unsuccessfully,  the  vituperative  style  of 
his  patron.  The  minion  of  Jeffreys  was,  as  might  have  been 
expected,  preferred  by  James,  was  proposed  by  Middleton,  and 
was  chosen  without  opposition. $ 

Thus  far  all  went  smoothly.    But  an  adversary  of  no  common 

*  Barillon,  May 4-14, 1685;  Sir  John  Reresby's  Memoirs 

t  Buniet,  i.  626  ;  Evelyn's  Diary,  May,  22,  1685. 

t  Roger  North's  Life  of  Guildford,  218  ;  Bramston's  Memoirs. 


•  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

prowess  was  watcliing  his  time.     This  was   Edward  Seymour 
of  Ben-y  Pomeroy  Custle,  member  for  the  city  of  Exeter,    Sey- 
mour's birth  put  him  on  a  level  with  the  noblest  subjects  in 
Europe.     He  was  the  right  heir  male  of  the  body  of  that.  Duke 
of    Somerset    who    had  been    brother  iu  law    of  King  Henry 
the  Eighth,  and  Protector  of  the  realm  of   England.     In  the 
limitation  of   the  dukedom  of  Somerset,  the  elder  son  of  the 
Protector  had  been  postponed  to  the  younger  son.     From  the 
younger  son  the  Dukes  of  Somerset  were  descended.     From 
the  elder  son  was  descended  the  family  whicli  dwelt  at  Berry 
Pomeroy.  Seymour's  fortune  was  large,  and  his  influence  in  the 
West  of  England  extensive.       Nor  was  the  importance  derived 
from  descent  and  wealth   the  only  importance  which  belonged 
to  him.     He  was  one  of  the  most  skilful  debaters  and   men  of 
business  in  the  kingdom.     He  had  sate  many  years  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  had  studied  all  its  rules  and  usages,  and  thorough- 
ly understood  its  peculiar  temper.    He  had  been  elected  speaker 
in  the  late  reign  under  circumstances  which  made  thett  distinc- 
tion peculiarly  honourable.     During  several  generations  none 
but  lawyers  had  been  called  to  the  chair ;  and  he  was  the  first 
country  gentleman  whose  abilities  and  acquirements  had  enabled 
him  to  break  that  long  prescription.     He  had  subsequently  held 
high  political  office,  and  had  sate  in    the  Cabinet.     But  his 
haughty  and  unaccommodating  temper  had  given   so  much   dis- 
gust that  he  had  been  forced  to  retire.     He  was  a  Tory  and  a 
Churchman  :    he  had  strenuously  opposed  the  Exclusion   Bill  : 
he  had  been  persecuted  by  the  Whigs  in  the  day  of  their  pros- 
perity ;  and  he  could  therefore  safely  venture  to  hold  language 
for  which  any  person   suspected  of  republicanism  would  have 
been  sent  to  the  Tower,     He  had  long  been  at  the  head  of  a 
strong  parliamentary  connection,  which  was  called  the  Western 
Alliance,  and  which  included  many  gentlemen  of  Devonshire, 
Somersetshire,  and  Cornwall.* 

In  every  House  of  Commons,  a  member  who  unites  eloquence, 
knowledge,  and  habits  of  business,  to  opulence  and  illustrious 
descent,  must  be  highly  considered.     But  in   a  House  of  Com- 
♦  North's  Life  of  Guildford,  228  ;  News  from  Westminster. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  463 

mons  from  which  many  of  the  most  eminent  orators  and  par- 
liamentary tacticians  of  the  age  were  excluded,  and  which  was 
crowded  with  people  who  had  never  heard  a  debate,  the  influ- 
ence of  such  a  man  was  peculiarly  formidable.  Weight  of 
moral  character  was  indeed  wanting  to  Edward  Seymour.  He 
was  licentious,  profane,  corrupt,  too  proud  to  behave  with  com- 
mon politeness,  yet  not  too  proud  to  pocket  illicit  gain.  But  he 
was  so  useful  an  ally,  and  so  mischievous  an  enemy,  that  he  was 
frequently  courted  even  by  those  who  most  detested  him.* 

He  was  now  in  bad  humour  with  the  government.  His  in- 
terest had  been  weakened  in  some  places  by  the  remodelling  ot 
the  western  boroughs  :  his  pride  had  been  wounded  by  the  ele- 
vation of  Trevor  to  the  chair ;  and  he  took  an  early  opportunity 
of  revenging  himself. 

On  the  twenty-second  of  May  the  Commons  were  summoned 
to  the  bar  of  the  Lords  ;  and  the  King,  seated  on  his  throne, 
made  a  speech  to  both  Houses.  He  declared  himself  resolved 
to  maintain  the  established  government  in  Church  and  State. 
But  he  weakened  the  effect  of  this  declaration  by  addressing  an 
extraordinary  admonition  to  the  Commons.  He  was  apprehen- 
sive, he  said,  that  they  might  be  inclined  to  dole  out  money  to 
him  from  time  to  time,  in  the  hope  that  they  should  thus  force 
him  to  call  them  frequently  together.  But  he  must  warn  them 
that  he  was  not  to  be  so  dealt  with,  and  that,  if  they  wished 
him  to  meet  them  often  they  must  use  him  well.  As  it  was 
evident  that  without  money  the  government  could  not  be  carried 
on,  these  expressions  plainly  implied  that,  if  they  did  not  give 
him  as  much  money  as  he  wished,  he  would  take  it.  Strange 
to  say,  this  harangue  was  received  with  loud  cheers  by  the  Tory 
gentlemen  at  the  bar.  Such  acclamations  were  then  usual.  It 
has  now  been,  during  many  years  the  grave  and  decorous  usage 
of  Parliaments  to  hear,  in  respectful  silence,  all  expressions, 
acceptable  or  unacceptable,  which  are  uttered  from  the  thf one.f 

It  was  then  the  custom  that,  after  the  King  had  concisely 

*  Burnet,  i.  382  ;  Letter  from  Lord  Conway  to  Sir  George  Kawdon,  Dec.  28, 167T* 
in  the  Rawdon  Papers, 
t  London  Gazette,  May  25,  1685  ;  Evelyn's  Diary,  May  22,  1685. 


464  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

explained  his  reasons  for  calling  Parliament  together,  the  mfn» 
ister  who  held  the  Great  Seal  should,  at  more  length,  explain  to 
the  Houses  the  state  of  i^ublic  affairs.  Guildford,  in  imitation 
of  his  predecessors,  Clarendon,  Bridgeman,  Shafteslmry,  and 
Nottingham,  had  prepared  an  elaborate  oration,  but  found,  to 
his  great  mortification,  that  his  services  were  not  wanted.* 

As  soon  as  the  Commons  had  returned  to  their  own  chamber, 
it  was  proposed  that  they  should  resolve  themselves  into  a 
Committee,  for  the  purpose  of  settling  a  revenue  on  the  King. 

Then  Seymour  stood  up.  How  he  stood,  looking  like  what  lie 
was,  the  chief  of  a  dissolute  and  high  spirited  gentry,  with  the 
artificial  ringlets  clustering  in  fashionable  profusion  round  kis 
shoulders,  and  a  mingled  expression  of  voluptuousness  and  disdmu 
in  his  eye  and  on  his  lip,  the  likenesses  of  him  which  still  remain 
enable  us  to  imagine.  It  was  not,  the  haughty  Cavalier  said,  his 
wish  that  the  Parliament  should  withhold  from  the  crown  the 
means  of  carrying  on  the  government.  But  was  there  indeed  a 
Parliament  ?  Were  there  not  on  the  benches  many  men  who  had, 
as  all  the  world  knew,  no  right  to  sit  there,  many  men  whose 
elections  were  tainted  by  corruption,many  men  forced  by  intimida- 
tion on  reluctant  voters,  and  many  men  returned  by  corporations 
which  had  no  legal  existence?  Had  not  constituent  bodies 
been  remodelled,  in  defiance  of  royal  charters  and  of  immemorial 
prescription?  Had  not  returning  oflUcers  been  everywhere  the 
unscrupulous  agents  of  the  Court?  Seeing  that  the  very 
principle  of  representation  had  been  thus  systenratically  at« 
tacked,  he  knew  not  how  to  call  the  throng  of  gentlemen  which 
he  saw  around  him  by  tfie  honourable  name  of  a  House  of 
Commons.  Yet  never  was  there  a  time  when  it  more  concerned 
the  public  weal  that  the  character  of  Parliament  should  stand  high. 
Great  dangers  impended  over  the  ecclesiastical  and  civil  constitu- 
tion of  the  realm.  It  was  matter  of  vulgar  notoriety,  it  was 
matter  which  required  no  proof,  that  the  Test  Act,  the  rampart 
of  religion,  and  tlie  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  the  rampart  of  li^Verty, 
were  marked  out  for  destruction.  "  Before  we  proceed  t«.  leg* 
islute  on  questions   so   momentous,  let  us    at  least  asc&rtAin 

•  North's  Life  o£  GuUdford.  25& 


JAMES   THE    SECOND.  465 

whether  we  really  are  a  legislature.  Let  our  first  proceeding 
be  to  enquire  into  the  manner  in  which  the  elections  have 
been  conducted.  And  let  us  look  to  it  that  the  enquirj^  be 
impartial.  For,  if  the  nation  shall  find  that  no  redress  is  to  be 
obtained  by  peaceful  methods,  we  may  perhaps  er^  long  suffer 
the  justice  which  we  refuse  to  do."  He  concluded  by  moving 
that,  before  any  supply  was  granted,  the  House  would  take  into 
consideration  petitions  against  returns,  and  that  no  member 
whose  right  to  sit  was  disputed  should  be  allowed  to  vote. 

Not  a  cheer  was  heard.  Not  a  member  ventured  to  second 
the  motion.  Indeed,  Seymour  had  said  much  that  no  other  man 
could  have  said  with  impunity.  The  proposition  fell  to  the 
ground  and  was  not  even  entered  on  the  journals.  But  a  mighty 
effect  had  been  produced.  Barillon  informed  his  master  that 
many  who  had  not  dared  to  applaud  tliat  remarkable  speech  had 
cordially  approved  of  it,  that  it  was  the  universal  subject  of 
conversation  throughout  London,  and  that  the  impression  made 
on  the  public  mind  seemed  likely  to  be  durable.* 

The  Commons  went  into  committee  without  delay,  an^  voted 
to  the  King,  for  life,  the  whole  revenue  enjoyed  by  his  brother.f 

The  zealous  churchmen  who  formed  the  majority  of  the 
House  seem  to  have  been  of  opinion  that  the  promptitude  with 
which  they  had  met  the  wish  of  James,  touching  the  revenue, 
entitled  them  to  expect  some  concession  on  his  part.  They 
said  that  much  had  been  done  to  gratify  him,  and  that  they 
must  now  do  something  to  gratify  the  nation.  The  House 
therefore,  resolved  itself  into  a  Grand  Committee  of  Religion, 
in  order  to  consider  the  best  means  of  providrng  for  the  security 
of  the  ecclesiastical  establishment.  In  that  Committee  two 
resolutions  were  unanimously  adopted.  The  first  expressed 
fervent  attachment  to  the  Church  of  England.  The  second 
called  on  the  King  to  put  in  execution  the  penalslaws  against  all 
persons  who  were  not  members  of  that  Church. $ 

May  23  May  25 

•  Burnet,  1,  639  ;  Evelyn's  Diary,  May  22, 1G85 ;  BarUlon,  j^^^  ^  and  j^j^^ 
1685.  The  silence  of  the  journals  perplexed  Mr.  Fox  :  but  it  is  explained  by  the 
circumstance  that  Seymour's  motion  was  not  seconded. 

t  Journals,  May  22.    Stat.  Jac.  IT.  i.  1. 

t  Jonraaia,  May  ?6, 27.    Sir  J.  Reresby's  Memoirs 


466  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

The  Whigs  would  doubtless  have  wished  to  see  the  Protestant 
dissenters  tolerated,  and  the  Roman  Catholics  alone  persecuted. 
But  the  Whigs  were  a  small  and  a  disheartened  minority.  They 
therefore  kept  themselves  as  much  as  possible  out  of  sight, 
dropped  thek-  party  name,  abstained  from  obtruding  their  peculiar 
opinions  on  a  hostile  audience,  and  steadily  supported  every 
proposition  tending  to  disturb  the  harmony  which  as  yet  subsist- 
ed between  the  Parliament  and  the  Court. 

When  the  proceedings  of  the  Committee  of  Eeligion  were 
known  at  "Wliitehall,  the  King's  anger  was  great.  Nor  can 
we  justly  blame  hira  for  resenting  the  conduct  of  the  Tories. 
If  they  were  disposed  to  require  the  rigorous  execution  of  the 
penal  code,  they  clearly  ought  to  have  supported  the  Exclusion 
Bill.  For  to  place  a  Papist  on  the  throne,  and  then  to  insist  on 
his  persecuting  to  the  death  the  teachers  of  that  faith  in  which 
alone,  on  his  princij^les,  salvation  could  be  found,  was  monstrous. 
In  mitigating  by  a  lenient  administration  the  severity  of  the 
bloody  laws  of  Elizabeth,  the  King  violated  no  constitutional 
principle.  He  only  exerted  a  power  which  lias  always  belono-ed 
to  the  crown.  Nay,  he  only  did  what  was  afterwards  done  by 
a  succession  of  sovereigns  zealous  for  Protestantism,  by  William, 
by  Anne,  and  by  the  princes  of  the  House  of  Brunswick.  Had 
he  suffered  Roman  Catholic  priests,  whose  lives  he  could  save 
without  infringing  any  law,  to  be  hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered 
for  discharging  what  he  considered  as  their  first  duty,  he  would 
have  drawn  on  himself  the  hatred  and  contempt  even  of  those 
to  whose  prejudices  he  had  made  so  shameful  a  concession  ;  and, 
had  he  contented  himself  with  granting  to  the  members  of  his 
own  Church  a  practical  toleration  by  a  large  exercise  of  his  un- 
questioned prerogative  of  mercy,  posterity  would  have  unani- 
mously applauded  him. 

The  Commons  probably  felt  on  reflection  that  they  had  acted 
absurdly.  They  were  also  disturbed  by  learning  that  the  King, 
to  whom  they  looked  up  with  superstitious  reverence,  was  greatly 
provoked.  They  made  haste,  therefore,  to  atone  for  their  of- 
fence. In  the  House,  they  unanimously  reversed  the  decision 
whicbf  in  the  Cormuittee,  they  had  unanimously  adopted,  and 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  467 

passed  a  resolution  importing  that  they  relied  with  entire  confi- 
dence on  His  Majesty's  gracious  promise  to  protect  that  religion 
which  was  dearer  to  them  than  life  itself.* 

Three  days  later  the  King  informed  the  House  that  his 
brother  had  left  some  debts,  and  that  the  stores  of  the  navy  and 
ordnance  were  nearly  exhausted.  It  was  proniptly  resolved  that 
new  taxes  should  be  imposed.  The  person  on  whom  devolved 
the  task  of  devising  ways  and  means  was  Sir  Dudley  North, 
younger  brother  of  the  Lord  Keeper.  Dudley  North  was  one 
of  the  ablest  men  of  his  time.  He  had  early  in  life  been  sent 
to  the  Levant,  and  had  there  been  long  engaged  in  mercantile 
pursuits.  Most  men  would,  in  such  a  situation,  have  allowed 
their  faculties  to  rust.  For  at  Smyrna  and  Constantinople  there 
were  few  books  and  few  intelligent  companions.  But  the 
young  factor  had  one  of  those  vigorous  understandings  which  are 
independent  of  external  aids.  In  his  solitude  he  meditated 
deeply  on  the  philosophy  of  trade,  and  thought  out  by  degrees 
a  complete  and  admirable  theory,  substantially  the  same  with  that 
which,  a  century  later,  was  expounded  by  Adam  Smith.  After 
an  exile  of  many  years,  Dudley  North  returned  to  England  with 
a  large  fortune,  and  commenced  business  as  a  Turkey  merchant 
in  the  City  of  London.  His  profound  knowledge,  both  specu- 
lative and  practical,  of  commercial  matters,  and  the  perspicuity 
and  liveliness  with  which  he  explained  his  views,  speedily  in- 
troduced him  to  the  notice  of  statesmen.  The  government 
found  in  him  at  once  an  enlightened  adviser  and  an  unscrupulous 
slave.  For  with  his  rare  mental  endowments  were  joined  lax 
principles  and  an  unfeeling  heart.  When  the  Tory  reaction  was 
in  full  progress,  he  had  consented  to  be  made  Sheriff  for  the 
express  purpose  of  assisting  the  vengeance  of  the  court.  His 
juries  had  never  failed  to  find  verdicts  of  Guilty  ;  and,  on  a  day 
of  judicial  butchery,  carts,  loaded  with  the  legs  nd  arms  of 
quartered  Whigs,  were,  to  the  great  discomposure  of  his  lady, 
driven  to  his  fine  house  in  Basinghall  Street  for  orders.  His 
services  had  been  rewarded  with  the  honour  of  knighthood,  with 

*  Commons'  Journals,  May  27,  1685. 


468  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

an  Alderman's  gown,  and  with  the  office  of  Commissioner  of 
the  Customs.  He  had  been  brought  into  Parliament  for  Ban- 
bury, and  though  a  new  member,  was  the  person  on  whom  the 
Lord  Treasurer  chiefly  relied  for  the  conduct  of  financial  busi- 
ness in  the  Lower  House.* 

Tbouffh  the  Commons  were  unanimous  in  their  resolution  to 
grant  a  further  supply  to  the  crown,  they  were  by  no  means  agreed 
as  to  the  sources  from  which  that  supply  should  be  drawn.  It  wa« 
speedily  determined  that  part  of  the  sum  which  was  required 
should  be  raised  by  laying  an  additional  impost,  for  a  term  oi 
eight  years,  on  wine  and  vinegar  :  but  something  more  than  this 
fvas  needed.  Several  absurd  schemes  were  suggested.  Many 
country  gentlemen  were  disposed  to  put  a  heavy  tax  on  all  new 
buildings  in  the  capital.  Such  a  tax,  it  was  hoped,  would  check 
the  growth  of  a  city  which  had  long  been  regarded  with  jealousy 
and  aversion  by  the  rural  aristocracy.  Dudley  North's  plan  was 
that  additional  duties  should  be  imposed,  for  a  term  of  eight 
years,  on  sugar  and  tobacco.  A  great  clamour  was  raised. 
Colonial  merchants,  grocers,  sugar  bakers  and  tobacconists,  pe- 
titioned the  House  and  besieged  the  public  offices.  The  people 
of  Bristol,  who  were  deeply  interested  in  the  trade  with  Virginia 
and  Jamaica,  sent  up  a  deputation  which  was  heard  at  the  bar 
of  the  Commons.  Rochester  was  for  a  moment  staggered  ;  but 
North's  ready  wit  and  perfect  knowledge  of  trade  prevailed, 
both  in  the  Treasury  and  in  the  Parliament,  against  all  opposi- 
tion. The  old  members  were  amazed  at  seeing  a  man  who  had 
not  been  a  fortnight  in  the  House,  and  whose  life  had  been  chiefly 
passed  in  foreign  countries,  assume  with  confidence,  and  discharge 
with  ability,  all  the  functions  of  a  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.f 

His  plan  was  adopted  ;  and  thus  the  Crown  was  in  possession 
of  a  clear  income  of  about  nineteen  hundred  thousand  pounds, 
derived  from  England  alone.  Such  an  income  was  then  more 
than  sufficient  for  the  support  of  the  government  in  time  of 
peace. $ 

*  Roger  North's  Life  of  Sir  Dudley  North  ;  Life  of  Lord  Guilford,  166  ;  Mr. 
M'Cullough's  Literature  of  Political  Economj'. 
t  Life  of  Dudley  North,  1T6  ;  LMisdale's  Memoirs  ;  Van  Citters,  June  12-22, 1686. 
t  Commons'  Journals,  Mar<^  1,  1689, 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  469 

The  Lords  had,  in  the  meantime,  discussed  several  important 
questions.  Tiie  Tory  party  had  always  been  strong  among  the 
peers.  It  included  the  whole  bench  of  Bishops,  and  had  been 
reinforced  during  the  four  years  which  had  elapsed  since  the 
last  dissolution,  by  several  fresh  creations.  Of  the  new  nobles, 
the  most- conspicuous  were  the  Lord  Treasurer  Rochester,  the 
Lord  Keeper  Guildfoi'd,  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  Jeffreys,  the 
Loi-d  Godolphin,  and  the  Lord  Churcliill,  who,  after  his  return 
from  Versailles,  had  been  made  a  Baron  of  England. 

The  peers  early  took  into  consideration  the  case  of  four 
members  of  their  body  who  had  been  impeached  in  the  late 
reign,  but  had  never  been  brought  to  trial,  and  had,  after  a 
long  confinement,  been  admitted  to  bail  by  the  Court  of  King's 
Bench.  Three  of  the  noblemen  who  were  thus  under  recog- 
nisances were  Roman  Catholics.  The  fourth  was '  a  Protestant 
of  great  note  and  influence,  the  Earl  of  Danby.  Since  he  had 
fallen  from  power  and  had  been  accused  of  treason  by  the 
Commons,  four  Parliaments  had  been  dissolved  ;  but  he  had 
been  neither  acquitted  nor  condemned.  In  1679  the  Lords 
had  considered,  with  reference  to  his  situation,  the  question 
whether  an  impeachment  was  or  was  not  terminated  by  a 
dissolution.  They  had  resolved,  after  long  debate  and  full 
examination  of  >recedents,  that  the  impeachment  was  still 
pending.  That  resolution  they  now  rescinded.  A  few  Whig 
nobles  protested  against  this  step,  but  to  little  purpose.  The 
Commons  silently  acquiesced  in  the  decision  of  the  Upper  House. 
^Danby  again  took  his  seat  among  his  peers,  and  became  an 
active  and  powerful  member  of  the  Tory  party.* 

The  constitutional  question  on  which  the  Lords  thus,  in 
the  short  space  of  six  years,  pronounced  two  diametricalljl 
opposite  decisions,  slept  during  more  than  a  century,  and  wal 
at  length  revived  by  the  dissolution  which  took  place  durmg 
the  lon<^  trial  of  Warren  Hastings.  It  was  then  necessary 
to  determine  whether  the  rule  laid  down  in  1679,  or  the 
opposite  rule  laid  down  in  1685,  was  to  be  accounted  the  law 

*  Lords'  Journals,  March  18, 19, 1679.  May  22, 1685- 


470  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND, 

of  the  land.  The  point  was  long  debated  in  both  houses  j 
and  the  best  legal  and  parliamentary  abilities  which  an  age 
preeminently  fertile  both  in  legal  and  in  parliamentary  ability 
could  supply  were  employed  in  the  discussion.  The  lawyers 
were  not  unequally  divided.  Thurlow,  Kenyon,  Scott,  and 
Erskine  maintained  that  the  dissolution  had  put  an  end  to 
the  impeachment.  The  contrary  doctrine  was  held  by  Mansfield,, 
Camden,  Loughborough,  and  Grant.  But  among  those  states- 
men who  grounded  their  arguments,  not  on  precedents  andi 
technical  analogies,  but  on  <leep  and  broad  constitutional  princi- 
ples, there  was  little  difference  of  opinion.  Pitt  and  Grenville, 
as  well  as  Burke  and  Fox,  held  that  the  impeachment  was  still 
pending.  Both  Houses  by  great  majorities  set  aside  the  decision 
of  1 685,  and  pronounced  the  decision  of  1679  to  be  in  conformity 
with  the  law  of  Parliament. 

Of  the  national  crimes  which  had  been  committed  during 
the  panic  excited  by  the  fictions  of  Gates,  the  most  signal  had 
been  the  judicial  murder  of  Stafford.  The  sentence  of  that 
unhappy  nobleman  was  now  regarded  by  all  impartial  persons 
as  unjust.  The  principal  witness  for  the  prosecution  had 
been  convicted  of  a  series  of  foul  perjuries.  It  was  the  duty 
of  the  legislature,  in  such  circumstances,  to  do  justice  to  the 
memory  of  a  guiltless  sufferer,  and  to  efl'ace  an  unmerited 
stain  from  a  name  lon^  illustrious  in  our  annals.  A  bill  for 
reversing  the  attainder  of  Stafford  was  passed  by  the  Upper 
House,  in  spite  of  the  murmurs  of  a  few  peers  who  were  un- 
willing to  admit  that  they  had  shed  innocent  blood.  The 
Commons  read  the  bill  twice  without  a  division,  and  ordered 
it  to  be  committed.  But,  on  the  day  appointed  for  the  com- 
mittee, arrived  news  that  a  formidable  rebellion  had  broken  out 
in  the  West  of  England.  It  was  consequently  necessary  to 
postpone  much  important  business.  The  amends  due  to  the 
memory  of  Stafford  were  deferred,  as  was  supposed,  only  for  a 
short  time.  But  the  misgovernment  of  James  in  a  few  months 
completely  turned  the  tide  of  jjublic  feeling.  During  several 
generations  the  Roman  Catholics  were  in  no  condition  to  d'mand 
repai'atiou  for  injustice,  and  accounted  themselves  happy  if  they 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  471 

we'»  p<ormitted  to  live  unmolested  in  obscurity  and  silence.  At 
length,  Jn  the  reign  of  King  George  the  Fourth,  more  than  a 
hundred  and  forty  years  after  the  day  on  which  the  blood  of 
Stafford  \ras  shed  on  Tower  Hill,  the  tardy  expiation  was  accom- 
plished. A  law  annulling  the  attainder  and  restoring  the 
injured  fam.'{}  to  its  ancient  dignities  was  presented  to  Parlia- 
ment by  the  ntmisters  of  the  crown,  was  eagerly  welcomed  by 
public  men  of  ab  parties,  and  was  passed  without  one  dissentient 
voice.* 

Tt  is  now  necessary  that  I  shouk^  trace  the  orfgin  and  pro- 
gress of  that  rebellion  hy  which  the  deliberations  of  the  Houses 
were  suddenly  interrupted. 

*  Stat.  S  Geo.  IV.  c.  46. 


472  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  some 
Whigs  who  had  been  deeply  implicated  in  the  plot  so  fatal  to 
their  party,  a^d  who  knew  themselves  to  be  marked  out  for  de- 
struction, had  sought  an  asylum  in  the  Low  Countries. 

These  refugees  were  in  general ,  men  of  fiery  temper  and 
weak  judgment.  ^^ej  were  also  under  the  influence  of  that 
peculiar  illusion  which  seems  to  belong  to  their  situation,  A 
politician  driven  into  banishment  by  a  hostile  faction  generally 
sees  the  society  which  he  has  quitted  through  a  false  medium. 
Every  object  is  distorted  and  discoloured  by  his  regrets,  tig 
longings,  and  his  resentments.  Every  little  discontent  appears 
to  him  to  portend  a  revolution.  Every  riot  is  a  rebellion.  He 
cannot  be  convinced  that  his  country  does  not  pine  for  him  as 
much  as  he  pines  for  his  country.  He  imagines  that  all  his  old 
associates,  who  still  dwell  at  their  homes  and  enjoy  their  estates, 
are  tormented  by  the  same  feelings  which  make  life  a  burden  to 
himself.  The  longer  his  expatriation,  the  greater  does  this  hal- 
lucination become.  The  lapse  ^of  time,  which  cools  the  ardour 
of  the  friends  whom  he  has  left  behind,  inflames  his.  Every 
month  his  impatience  to  revisit  his  native  land  increases  ;  and 
every  month  his  native  land  remembers  and  misses  him  less. 
This  delusion  becomes  almost  a  madness  when  many  exiles  who 
suffer  in  the  same  cause  herd  together  in  a  foreign  country. 
Their  chief  employment  is  to  talk  of  what  they  once  were,  and 
of  what  they  may  yet  be,  to  goad  each  other  into  animosity 
against  the  common  enemy,  to  feed  each  other  with  extrava- 
gant hopes  of  victory  and  revenge.  Thus  they  become  ripe  for 
enterprises  which  would  at  once  be  pronounced  hopeless  by  any 
man  whose  passions  had  not  deprived  him  of  the  power  of  cal- 
culating chances. 


JAMES    TPTE    SECOND.  .  A7b 

In  thi3  mood  were  many  of  the  outlawr;  v/ho  Tind  assembled 
on  the  Continent.  The  correspondence  which  they  kept  up 
with  England  was,  for  the  most  prrt,  such  as  tended  to  excite 
their  feelings  and  to  mi,  l  their  judgment.  Their  informa- 
tion concerning  the  temper  of  the  public  mind  was  chiefly 
derived  from  the  worst  members  of  the  Whig  party,  from  men 
wliiO  were  plotters  and  libellers  by  profession,  who  were  pursued 
by  the  oificers  of  justice,  who  were  forced  to  skulk  in  disguise 
through  back  streets,  and  who  sometimes  lay  hid  for  weeks  to- 
gether in  cocklofts  and  cellars.  The  statesmen  who  had  for- 
merly been  the  ornaments  of  the  Country- Party,  the  statesmen 
who  afterwards  guided  the  councils  of  the  Convention,  would 
have  given  advice  very  different  from  that  which  was  given  by 
such  men  as  John  Wildman  and  Henry  Danvers. 

Wild  man  had  served  forty  years  before  in  the  parliamentary 
army,  but  had  been  more  distinguished  there  as  an  agitator  than 
as  a  soldier,  and  had  early  quitted  the  profession  of  arms  for 
pursuits  better  suited  to  his  temper.  His  hatred  of  monarchy 
had  induced  him  to  engage  in  a  long  series  of  conspiracies,  first 
against  the  Protector,  and  then  against  the  Stuarts.  But  with 
Wildmen's  fanaticism  was  joined  a  tender  cure  for  his  own 
safety.  He  had  a  v,  onderf  ul  skill  in  grazing  the  edge  of  treason. 
No  man  understood  better  how  to  instigate  others  to  desperate 
enterprises  by  words  which,  when  repealed  to  a  jury,  might 
seem  innocent,  or,  at  worst,  ambiguous.  Such  was  his  cunning 
that,  though  always  plotting,  though  alw'ays  known  to  be  plot- 
ting, and  though  long  malignantly  watched  by  a  vindict'ive  gov- 
ernment, he  eluded  every  danger,  and  died  in  liis  bed,  after 
having  seen  two  generations  of  his  accomplices  die  on  the  gal- 
lows.* Danvers  was  a  man  of  the  same  class,  hetheaded,  but 
fainthearted,  constantly  urged  to  the  bi'ink  of  danger  by  enthusi- 
asm, and  constantly  stopped  on  that  brink  by  cowardice.  He 
had  considerable  influence  among  a  portion  of  the  Baptists, 
had  written  largely  in  defence  of  their  peculiar  opinions,  and 

•Clarendon's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  book  xiv.;  Burnet's  Own  Times,  i. 
BiC,  C25;  Wade's  and  Ireton's  Karrativus,  Lansdowne  MS.  1152*  West's  informal 
tion  in  the  Appendix  to  Sprat's  True  Account. 


474  HliSTORT   OP   ENGLAND. 

had  drawn  down  on  hinaself  the  severe  censure  of  the  most 
respectable  Puritans  by  attempting  to  palliate  the  crimes  of 
Matthias  and  John  of  Leyden.  It  is  probable  that,  had  he 
possessed  a  little  courage,  he  would  have  trodden  in  the  foot- 
steps of  the  wretches  whom  he  defended.  He  was,  at  this  tune, 
concealing  himself  from  the  officers  of  justice  ;  for  warrants 
were  out  against  him  on  account  of  a  grossly  calumnious  paper 
of  which  the  government  had  discovered  him  to  be  the  author.* 

It  is  easy  to  imagine  what  kind  of  intelligence  and  counsel 
men,  such  as  have  been  described,  were  likely  to  send  to  the 
outlaws  in  the  Netherlands.  Of  the  general  character  of  those 
outlaws  an  estimate  may  be  formed  from  a  few  samples. 

One  of  the  most  conspicuous  among  them  was  John  Ayloffe, 
a  lawyer  coi.  .£  -"ed  by  affinity  with  the  Hydes,  and  through  the 
Hydes,  with  James.  Ayloffe  had  early  made  himself  remark- 
able by  offering  a  whimsical  insult  to  the  government.  At  a 
time  when  the  ascendency  of  the  court  of  Versailles  had  excited 
general  uneasiness,  he  had  contrived  to  put  a  wooden  shoe,  the 
established  type,  among  the  English,  of  French  tyranny,  into 
the  chair  of  the  House  of  Commons.  He  had  subsequently 
been  concerned  in  the  Whig  plot ;  but  there  is  no  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  he  was  a  party  to  the  design  of  assassinating  the 
royal  brothers.  He  was  a  mau  of  parts  and  courage ;  but  his 
moral  character  did  not  stand  high.  The  Puritan  divines 
whispered  that  he  was  a  careless  Gallio  or  something  worse,  and 
that,  whatever  zeal  he  might  profess  for  civil  liberty,  the  Saints 
would  do  well  to  avoid  all  connection  with  him.f 

Nathaniel  Wade  was,  like  Ayloffe,  a  lawyer.  He  had  long 
resided  at  Bristol,  and  had  been  celebrated  in  his  own  neigh- 
bourhood a*  a  vehement  republican.      At  one  time   he  had 

•London  Gazette,  January,  4, 1684-5;  Ferguson  MS.  in  Eachard's  History,  iii. 
764;  Grey's  Narratives  ;  Sprat's  True  Account;  Danvers's  Treatise  on  Baptism  ; 
Danvei-s's  Innocency  and  Truth  vindicated;  Crosby's  History  of  the  English  Bap- 
tists. 

t  Sprat's  True  Account;  Burnet,  1.  634 ;  "Wade's  Confession,  Harl.  MS.  6845. 

Lord  Howard  of  Escrick  accused  Ayloffe  of  proposing  to  assassinate  the  Duke  of 
York  ;  but  Lord  Howard  was  an  abject  liar  ;  and  this  story  was  not  part  of  his 
original  confession,  but  was  added  afterwards  by  way  of  supplement,  and  there- 
fore deserves  no  credit  whatever. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  475 

formed  a  project  of  emigrating  to  New  Jersey,  where  he  expected 
to  find  institutions  better  suited  to  his  taste  than  those  of  Eng- 
land. His  activity  in  electioneering  had  introduced  him  to  the 
notice  of  some  Whig  nobles.  They  had  emj^loyed  liim  j^rofes- 
sionally,  and  had,  at  length,  admitted  him  to  their  most  secret 
counsels.  He  liad  been  deeply  concerned  in  the  scheme  of  in- 
surrection, and  had  undertaken  to  head  a  rising  in  his  own  city. 
He  had  also  been  privy  to  the  more  odious  plot  against  the  lives 
of  Charles  and  James.  But  he  always  declared  that,  though 
privy  to  it,  he  had  abhorred  it,  and  had  attempted  to  dissuade 
his  associates  from  carrying  tlieir  design  into  effect.  For  a  man 
bred  to  civil  pursuits,  Wade  seems  to  have  had,  in  an  unusuaP  , 
degree,  that  sort  of  ability  and  that  sort  of  nerve  which  *make  a 
good  soldier.  Unhappily  his  principles  and  his  courage  proved 
to  be  not  T)f  sufficient  force  to  support  him  when  the  fight  was 
over,  and  when  in  a  prison,  he  had  to  choose  between  death  and 
infamy.* 

Another  fugitive  was  Richa.^d  Goodenough,  who  had  for- 
merly been  Under  Sheriff  of  London.  On  this  man  his  party 
had  long  relied  for  services  of  no  honourable  kind,  and  espe- 
cially for  the  selection  of  jurymen  not  likely  to  be  troubled 
with  scruples  in  political  cases.  *  He  had  been  deeply  concerned 
in  those  dark  and  atrocious  parts  of  the  Whig  plot  which  had 
been  carefully  concealed  from  the  most  respectable  Whigs.  Nor 
is  it  possible  to  plead,  in  extenuation  of  his  .guilt,  that  he  was 
misled  by  inordinate  zeal  for  the  public  good.  For  it  will  be  seen 
that  after  having  disgraced  a  noble  cause  by  his  crimes,  he  be- 
trayed it  in  order  to  escape  from  his  well  merited  punishmentf 

Very  different  was  the  character  of  Richard  Rumbold.  He 
had  held  a  commission  in  Cromwell's  own  regiment,  had  guard- 
ed the  scaffold  before  the  Banqueting  House  on  the  day  of  the 
great  execution,  had  fought  at  Dunbar  and  Worcester,  and  had 
always  shown  in  the  highest  degree  the  qualities  which  distin- 


*  Wade's  Confession,  Harl.  MS.  6845  ;  Lansdswne  MS.  1152  ;  Holloway's 
narrative  in  tlie  Appendix  to  Sprat's  True  Account.  Wade  owned  tjjat  HoUoway 
had  told  nothing  but  truth. 

f  Sprat's  True  Account  and  Appendix,  passim. 


476  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

guished  tlie  invincible  army  in  which  he  served,  courage  of  the 
truest  temper,  fiery  enthusiasm,  both  political  and  religious, 
and  with  that  enthusiasm,  all  the  power  of  selfgovernment 
which  is  characteristic  of  men  trained  in  well  disciplined  camps 
to  command  and  to  obey.  When  the  Republican  troops  were 
disbanded,  Rumbold  became  a  maltster,  and  carried  on  his  trade 
near  Hoddesdon,  in  that  building  from  which  the  Rye  House 
plot  derives  its  name.  It  had  been  suggested,  though  not  abso- 
lutely determined,  in  the  conferences  of  the  most  violent  and  un- 
scrupulous of  the  malecontents,  that  armed  men  should  be 
stationed  in  the  Rye  House  to  attack  the  Guards  who  were  to 
escort  Charles  and  James  from  Newmarket  to  London,  In 
these  Gonferences  Rumbold  had  borne  a  part  from  which  he 
would  have  shrunk  with  horror,  if  his  clear  understanding  had 
not  been  overclouded,  and  his  manly  heart  corrupted,  by  party 
spirit.* 

A  more  important  exile  was  Ford  Grey,  Lord  Grey  of 
Wark.  He  had  been  a  zealous  Exclusionist,  had  concurred  in 
the  design  of  insurrection,  and  had  been  committed  to  the  Tow- 
er, but  had  succeeded  in  making  his  keepers  drunk,  and  in  effect- 
in  w  his  escape  to  the  Continent.  His  parliamentary  abilities  were 
great,  and  his  manners  pleasingi  but  his  life  had  been  sullied  by 
a  great  domestic  crime.  His  wife  wa^  a  daughter  of  the  noble 
house  of  Berkeley.  Her  sister,  the  Lady  Henrietta  Berkeley, 
was  allowed  to  a^ociate  and  correspond  with  him  as  with  a 
brother  by  blood.  A  fatal  attachment  sprang  up.  The  high 
spirit  and  strong  passions  of  Lady  Henrietta  broke  through  all 
restraints  of  vJrtue  and  decorum.  A  scandalous  elopement  dis- 
closed to  the  whole  kingdom  the  shame  of  two  illustrious  fami- 
lies. Grey  and  some  of  the  agents  who  had  served  him  in  his 
amour  were  brought  to  trial  on  a  charge  of  conspiracy.  A 
scene  unparalleled  in  our  legal  history  was  exhibited  in  the 
Court  of  King's  Bench.  The  seducer  appeared  with  daunt- 
less front,  accompanied  by  his  paramour.     Nor  did  the  great 

*  Sprat's  True  Account  and  Appendix  ;  Proceedings  against  Rumboli'i  in  the 
Collection  of  State  Trials  j  Burnet's  Own  Times,  i.  633 ;  Appendix  to  Fox's  His- 
tory,  No.  IV. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND,  477 

Whisf  lords  flineh  from  their  friend's  side  even  on  that  ex- 
tremity.  Those  whom  he  had  wronged  stood  over  against  him, 
and  were  moved  to  transports  of  rage  hy  the  siglit  of  liim.  The 
old  Earl  of  Berkeley  poured  forth  reproaches  and  curses  on  the 
wretched  Henrietta.  The  Countess  gave  eyidence  broken  by 
many  sobs,  and  at  length  fell  down  in  a  swoon.  The  jury  found 
a  verdict  of  Guilty.  When  the  court  rose  Lord  Berkeley  called' 
on  all  his  friends  to  help  him  to  sieze  his  daughter.  The  par- 
tisans of  Grey  rallied  round  her.  Swords  were  drawn  on  both 
sides ;  a  skirmish  took  place  in  Westminster  Hall ;  and  it  was 
with  difficulty  that  the  Judges  and  tipstaves  parted  the  com- 
batants. In  our  time  such  a  trial  would  be  fatal  to  the  character 
of  a  public  man  ;  but  in  that  age  the  standard  of  morality  among 
the  great  was  so  low,  and  party  spirit  was  so  violent,  that  Grey 
still  continued  to  have  considerable  influence,  though  the  Puri- 
tans, who  formed  a  strong  section  of  the  Whig  party,  looked 
somewhat  coldly  on  him.* 

One  part  of  the  character,  or  rather,  it  may  be,  of  the  for- 
tune, of  Grey  deserves  notice.  It  was  admitted  that  every- 
where, except  on  the  field  of  battle,  he  showed  a  high  degree  of 
courage.  More  than  once,  in  embarrassing  circumstances,  when 
his  life  and  liberty  were  at  stake,  the  dignity  of  his  deportment 
and  his  perfect  command  of  all  his  faculties  extorted  praise  from 
those  who  neither  loved  nor  esteemed  him.  But  as  a  soldier  he 
incurred,  less  perhaps  by  his  fault  than  by  mischance,  the  degrad- 
ing imputation  of  personal  cowardice. 

In  this  respect  he  differed  widely  from  his  friend  the  Duke 
of  Monmouth.  Ardent  and  intrepid  on  the  field  of  battle, 
Monmouth  was  everywhere  else  effeminate  and  irresolute.  The 
accident  of  his  birth,  his  personal  courage,  and  his  superficial 
graces,  had  placed  him  in  a  post  for  which  he  was  altogether  un- 
fitted. After  witnessing  the  ruin  of  the  party  of  which  he  had 
been  the  nominal  head,  l\e  had  retired  to  Holland.  The  Prince 
and  Princess  of  Orange  had  now  ceased  to  regard  him  as  a  rival. 
They  received  him  most  hospitably  ;  for   they  hoped   that,  by 

*  Grey's  narrati^t'e  ;  his  trial  in  the  Collection  of  State  Trials ;  Sprat's  Tru« 
Account.  * 


478  HISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND. 

treating  him  with  kindness,  they  should  establish  a  claim  to  the 
gratitude  of  his  father.  They  knew  that  paternal  affection  was 
not  yet  wearied  out,  that  letters  and  supplies  of  money  still 
came  secretly  from  Whitehall  to  Monmouth's  retreat,  and  that 
Charles  frowned:  on  those  who  sought  to  pay  their  court  to 
him  by  speaking  ill  of  his  banished  son.  The  Duke  had  been 
encouraged  to  expect  that,  in  a  very  short  tinie,  if  he  gave  no 
new  cause  of  displeasure,  he  would  be  recalled  to  his  native  land, 
and  restored  to  all  his  high  honours  and  commands.  Animated 
by  such  expectations  he  had  been  the  life  of  the  Hague  during 
the  late  winter.  He  had  been  the  most  conspicuous  figure  at  a 
succession  of  balls  in  that  splendid  Orange  Hall,  which  blazes 
on  every  side  with  the  most  ostentatious  colouring  of  Jordfens 
and  Hondthorst.*  He  had  taught  the  English  country  dance 
to  the  Dutch  ladies,  and  had  in  his  turn  learned  from  them  to 
skate  on  the  canals.  The  Princess  had  accompanied  him  in  his 
expeditions  on  the  ice ;  and  the  figure  which  she  made  there, 
poised  on  one  leg,  and  clad  in  petticoats  shorter  than  are  gener- 
ally worn  by  ladies  so  strictly  decorous,  had  caused  some  won- 
der and  mirth  to  the  foreign  ministers.  The  sullen  gravity 
which  had  been  characteristic  of  the  Stadtholder's  court  seemed 
to  have  vanished  before  the  influence  of  the  fascinating  English- 
man. Even  the  stern  and  pensive  William  relaxed  into  good 
humour  when  his  brilliant  guest  appeared. f 

Monmouth  meanwhile  carefully  avoided  all  that  could  give 
offence  in  the  quarter  to  which  he  looked  for  protection.  He 
saw  little  of  any  Whigs,  and  nothing  of  those  violent  men  who 
had  been  concerned  in  the  worst  part  of  the  Whig  plot.  He 
V  a  therefore  loudly  accused,  by  his  old  associates,  of  fickleness 
and  ingratitude.  $ 

By  none  of  the  exiles  was  this  accusation  urged  with  more 
vehemence  and  bitterness  than  by  Robert  Ferguson,  the  Judas 
of  Dryden's  great  satire.     Ferguson  was  by  birth  a  Scot ;  but 

*  In  the  Pepysian  Collection  is  a  print  representing  one  of  the  halls  which 
about  this  time  "William  and  Mary  gave  in  the  Oranje  Zaal. 

t  Avaux  Neg.  January  25,  1685.  Letter  from  James  to  the  Princess  of  Oranga 
dated  January  1685,   among  Birch's  Extracts  in  the  British  Museum. 

t  Grey's  Narfative  ;  Wade's  Confession,  Lanedowne  MS,  1153, 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  479 

England  had  long  been  his  residence.  At  the  time  of  the  Res- 
toration, indeed,  he  had  held  a  living  in  Kent.  He  had  been 
bred  a  Presbyterian;  but  the  Presbyterians  had  cast  him  out, 
and  he  had  become  an  Independent.  He  had  been  master  of  an 
academy  which  the  Dissenters  had  set  up  at  Islington  as  a  rival 
to  Westminster  School  and  the  Charter  House  ;  and  he  had 
preached  to  large  congregations  at  a  meeting  house  in  Moor- 
fields.  He  had  also  published  some  theological  treatises  which 
may  still  be  found  in  the  dusty  recesses  of  a  few  old  libraries ; 
but,  though  texts  of  Scripture  were  always  on  his  lips,  those 
who  had  pecuniary  transactions  with  him  soon  found  him  to  be 
a  mere  swindler. 

At  length  he  tui'ned  his  attention  almost  entirely  from 
theology  to  the  worst  part  of  politics.  He  belonged  to  the 
class  whose  office  it  is  to  render  in  troubled  times  to  exasp,era- 
ted  parties  those  services  from  which  honest  men  shrink  in  dis- 
gust and  prudent  men  in  fear,  the  class  of  fanatical  knaves. 
Violent,  malignant,  regardless  of  truth,  insensible  to  shame, 
insatiable  of  notoriety,  delighting  in  intrigue,  in  tumult,  in  mis- 
chief for  its  own  sake,  he  toiled  during  many  years  in  the  dark- 
est mines  of  faction.  He  lived  among  libellers  and  false  witnesses. 
He  was  the  keeper  of  a  secret  purse  from  which  agents  too  vile 
to  be  acknowledged  received  hire,  and  the  director  of  a  secret 
press  whence  pamphlets,  bearing  no  name,  were  daily  issued. 
He  boasted  that  he  had  contrived  tp  scatter  lampoons  about  the 
terrace  of  Windsor,  and  even  to  lay  them  under  the  royal  pil- 
low. In  this  way  of  life  he  was  put  to  many  shifts,  was  forced 
to  assume  many  names,  and  at  one  time  had  four  different 
lodgings  in  different  corners  of  London.  He  was  deeply  en- 
gaged in  the  Rye  House  plot.  There  is,  indeed,  reason  to 
believe  that  he  was  the  original  author  of  those  sanguinary 
schemes  which  brought  so  much  discredit  on  the  whole  Whig 
part3\  When  the  conspiracy  was  detected -and  his  associates 
were  in  dismay,  hq  bade  them  farewell  with  a  laugh,  and  told 
them  that  they  were  novices,  that  he  had  been  used  to  flight, 
concealment  and  disguise,  and  that  he  should  never  leave  off 
plotting  while  he  lived.     He  escaped  to  the  Continent.     But  it 


480  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

seemed  that  even  on  the  Continent  he  was  not  secure.  The 
English  envoys  at  foi-eign  courts  were  directed  to  be  on  the 
watch  for  him.  The  French  government  offered  a  reward  of 
five  hundred  pistoles  to  any  who  would  seize  him.  Nor  was 
it  easy  for  him  to  escape  notice  ;  for  his  broad  Scotch  accent, 
his  tall  and  lean  figure,  his  lantern  jaws,  the  gleam  of  his  sharp 
eyes  which  were  always  overhung  by  his  wig,  his  cheekc  inflamed 
by  an  eruption,  his  shoulders  deformed  by  a  stoop,  and  his  gait 
distinguished  from  that  of  other  men  by  a  peculiar  shufile, 
made  him  remai'kable  wherever  he  appeared.  But,  though  he 
was,  as  it  seemed,  piti'sued  with  peculiar  animosity,  it  was  whis- 
pered that  this  animosity  was  feigned,  and  that  the  officers  of  jus- 
tice had  secret  orders  not  to  see  him.  That  he  was  really  a  bitter 
malecontent  can  scarcely  be  doubted.  But  there  i  -  strong  reason 
to  believe  that  he  provided  for  his  own  safety  by  pretending  at 
Whitehall  to  be  a  spy  on  the  Whigs,  and  by  furnishing  the 
government  witli  just  so  much  information  as  sufficed  to  keep 
up  his  credit.  This  hypothesis  furnishes  a  simple  explanation 
of  what  seemed  to  his  associates  to  be  his  unnatural  reckless- 
ness and  audacity.  Being  himself  out  of  danger,  he  always 
gave  his  vote  for  the  most  violent  and  perilous  course,  and 
sneered  very  complacently  at  the  pusillanimity  of  men  who,  not 
having  taken  the  infamous  precautions  on  which  he  relied,  were 
disposed  to  think  twice  before  they  placed  life,  and  objects 
dearer  than  life,  on  a  single  hazard.* 

As  soon  as  he  was  in  the  Low  Countries  he  began  to  form 
new  projects  against  the  English  government,  and  found  among 
his  fellow  emigrants  men  ready  to  listen  to  his  evil  counsels. 
Monmouth,  however,  stood  obstinately  aloof;  and,  without  the 
help  of  Monmouth's  immense  popuIarit3%  it  was  impossible  to 
effect  anything.  Yet  such  was  the  imf)atience  and  rashness  of 
the  exiles  that  they  tried  to  find  another  leader.  They  sent  an 
embassy  to  that  solitary  retreat  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Leman 
where  Edmund  Ludlow,  once  conspicuous  aifiong  the  chiefs  of 

*  Burnet,  i.  542  ;  Wood,  Atli.  Ox.  under  the  name  of  Owen  ;  Absalom  and  Ach- 
tophel,  part  ii.;  Eachard,  iii.  682,  697  ;  Sprat's  True  Account,  passm;  Loud.  Gaz. 
Aug.  6, 1683 ;  Nonconformist's  Memorial ;  North's  Examen,  399. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  481 

the  parliamentary  army  and  among  the  members  of  the  High 
Court  of  Justice,  had,  during  many  years,  saved  himself  from 
the  vengeance  of  the  restored  Stuarts.  The  stern  old  regicide, 
howevei-,  refused  to  quit  his  hermitage.  His  work,  he  said,  was 
done.  If  England  was  still  to  be  saved,  she  must  be  saved  by 
younger  men.* 

The  unexpected  demise  of  the  crown  changed  the  whole 
aspect  of  affairs.  Any  hope  which  the  proscribed  Whigs  might 
have  cherished  of  returning  peaceably  to  their  native  land  was 
extinguished  by  the  death  of  a  careless  and  goodnatured  prince, 
and  by  the  accession  of  a  prince  obstinate  in  all  things,  and 
especially  obstinate  in  revenge.  Ferguson  was  in  his  element. 
Destitute  of  the  talents  both  of  a  writer  and  of  a  statesman,  he 
had  in  a  high  degree  the  unenviable  qualifications  of  a  tempter; 
and  now,  witLthe  malevolent  activity  and  dexterity  of  an  evil 
spirit,  he  ran  from  outlaw  to  outlaw,  chattered  in  every  ear,  and 
stirred  up  in  every  bosom  savage  animosities  and  wild  desires. 

He  no  longer  despaii-ed  of  being  able  to  seduce  Monmouth. 
The  situation  of  that  unhappy  young  man  was  completely 
changed.  While  he  was  dancing  and  skating  at  the  Hague,  and 
expecting  every  day  a  summons  to  London,  he  was  over- 
whelmed with  misery  by  the  tidings  of  his  father's  death  and  of 
his  uncle's  accession.  During  the  night  which  followed  the 
arrival  of  the  news,  those  who  lodged  near  him  could  distinctly 
hear  his  sobs  and  his  piercing  cries.  He  quitted  the  Hague  the 
next  day,  having  solemnly  pledged  his  word  both  to  the  Prince 
and  to  the  Princess  of  Orange  not  to  attempt  anything  against 
the  government  or  England,  and  having  been  supplied  by  them 
with  money  to  meet  immediate  demands.f 

The  prospect  which  lay  before  Monmouth  was  not  a  bright 
one.  There  was  now  no  probability  that  he  would  be  recalled 
from  banishment.  On  the  Continent  his  life  could  no  longer 
be  passed  amidst  the  splendor  and  festivity  of  a  court.  His 
cousins  at  the  Hague  seem  to  have  really  regarded  him  with 

*  Wade's  Confessiou,  Harl.  MS.  6845. 

t  Avaux  Neg.  Feb.  20,  22, 1685;  Monmouth's  letter  to  James  from  Bingwood. 

31 


482  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND* 

kindness  ;  but  they  could  no  longer  countenance  him  openly 
without  serious  risk  of  producing  a  rupture  between  England 
and  Holland.  William  offered  a  kind  and  judicious  suggestion. 
The  war  which  was  then  raging  in  Hungary,  between  the 
Emperor  and  the  Turks,  was  watched  by  all  Europe  with  in- 
terest almost  us  great  as  that  which  the  Crusades  had  excited 
five  hundred  years  earlier.  Many  gallant  gentlemen,  both  Pro- 
testant and  Catholic,  were  fighting  as  volunteers  in  the  common 
cause  of  Christendom.  The  Prince  advised  Monmouth  to  re- 
pair to  the  Imperial  camp,  and  assured  him  that,  if  he  would  do 
so,  he  should  not  want  the  means  of  making  an  appearance  be- 
fitting an  English  nobleman.*  This  counsel  was  excellent :  but 
the  Duke  could  not  make  up  his  mind.  He  retired  to  Brussels 
accompanied  by  Henrietta  Wentworth,  Baroness  Wentworth  of 
Kettlestede,  a  damsel  of  high  rank  and  ample  fortune,  who 
loved  him  passionately,  who  had  sacrificed  for.  his  sake  her 
maiden  honour  and  the  hope  of  a  splendid  alliance,  who  had 
followed  him  into  exile,  and  whom  he  believed  to  be  his  wife 
in  the  sight  of  heaven.  Under  the  soothing  influence  of  female 
friendship,  his  lacerated  mind  healed  fast.  He  seemed  to  have 
found  happiness  in  obscurity  and  repose,  and  to  have  forgotten 
that  he  had  been  the  ornament  of  a  splendid  court  and  the  head 
of  a  great  party,  that  he  had  commanded  armies,  and  that  he 
had  aspired  to  a  throne. 

But  he  was  not  suffered  to  remain  quiet.  Ferguson  employed 
all  his  powers  of  temptation.  Grey,  who  knew  not  where  to 
turn  for  a  pistole,  and  was  ready  for  any  undertakmg,  however 
desperate,  lent  his  aid.  No  art  was  spared  which  could  draw 
Monmouth  from  retreat.  To  the  first  invitations  which  he  re- 
ceived from  his  old  associates  he  returned  unfavourable  answers. 
He  pronounced  the  difficulties  of  a  descent  on  England  insuijer- 
able.  protested  that  he  was  sick  of  public  life,  and  begged  to  be 
left  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  newly  found  happiness.  But  he 
was  little  in  the  habit  of  resisting  skilful  and  urgent  importun- 
ity.    It  is  said,  too,  that  he  was  induced  to  quit  his  retirement 

*  Boyer's  History  of  King  William  the  Third,  2d  edition,  1703,  vol.  i.  160. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  483 

by  the  same  powerful  influence  which  had  made  that  retirement 
delightful.  Lady  Wentworth  wished  to  see  him  a  King.  Her 
rents,  her  diamonds,  her  credit  were  put  at  his  disposal.  Mon- 
mouth's judgment  was  not  convinced;  but  he  had  not  the  firm- 
ness to  resist  such  solicitations.* 

By  the  English  exiles  he  was  joyfully  welcomed,  and  unani- 
mously acknowledged  as  their  head.  But  there  was  another 
class  of  emigrants  who  were  not  disposed  to  recognize  his  su- 
premacy. Misgovernment,  such  as  had  never  been  known  in 
the  southern  part  of  our  island,  had  driven  from  Scotland  to 
the  Continent  many  fugitives,  the  intemperance  of  whose  politi- 
cal and  religious  zeal  was  pi'oportioned  to  the  oppression  which 
they  had  undergone.  These  men  were  not  willing  to  follow  an 
English  leader.  Even  in  destitution  and  exile  they  retained 
their  punctilious  national  pjide,  and  would  not  consent  that  their 
country  should  be,  in  their  persons,  degraded  into  a  province. 
They  had  a  captain  of  their  own,  Archibald,  ninth  Earl  of  Ar- 
gyle,  who  as  chief  of  the  great  tribe  of  Campbell,  was  known 
among  the  population  of  the  Highlands  by  the  proud  name  of 
Mac  Callum  More.  His  father,  the  Marquess  of  Argyle,  had 
been  the  head  of  the  Scotch  Covenanters,  had  greatly  contribu- 
ted to  the  ruin  of  Charles  the  First,  and  was  not  thought  by  the 
Royalists  to  have  atoned  for  this  offense  by  consenting  to  be- 
stown  the  empty  title  of  King,  and  a  state  prison  in  a  palace,  on 
Charles  the  Second.  After  the  return  of  the  royal  family  the 
Marquess  was  put  to  death.  His  marquisate  became  extinct; 
but  his  son  was  permitted  to  inherit  the  ancient  earldom,  and 
was  still  among  the  greatest  if  not  the  greatest,  of  the  nobles  of 
Scotland.  The  Earl's  conduct  during  the  twenty  years  which 
'followed  the  Restoration  had  been,  as  he  afterwards  thought, 
criminally  moderate.     He   had,  on  some   occasions,  opposed  the 

*  Welvvood's  Memoirs,  App.  xv. ;  Burnet,  i.  630.  Grey  told  a  somewhat  differ- 
ent story;  but  he  told  it  to  save  his  life.  The  Spanish  ambassador  at  the  English 
court,  Don  Pedro  de  Ronquillo,  in  a  letter  to  the  governor  of  the  Low  Countries 
written  about  this  time,  sneers  at  Monmouth  for  living  on  the  bounty  of  a  fond 
woman,  and  hints  a  very  unfounded  suspicion  that  the  Duke's  passion  was  alto- 
gether interested.  "Hallandose  hoy  tan  falto  de  raedios  que  ha  menester  tras- 
lormar.'je  en  Amor  con  Miledi  en  vjsta  de  la  ecesidad  de  poder  subsistir."— Ron- 
quillo to  Grana,y'^''.V^°'1685. 


484  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

administration  which  afflicted  his  country :  but  his  opposition 
had  been  languid  and  cautious.  His  compliances  in  ecclesiusti. 
cal  matters  had  given  scandal  to  rigid  Presbyterians  :  and  so 
far  had  he  been  from  showing  any  inclination  to  resistance  that, 
when  the  Covenanters  had  been  persecuted  into  insurrection, 
he  had  brought  into  the  field  a  large  body  of  his  dependents  to 
support  the  government. 

Such  had  been  his  political  course  until  the  Duke  of  York 
came  down  to  Edinburgh  armed  with  the  whole  regal  authority. 
The  despotic  viceroy  soon  found  that  he  could  not  expect  entire 
support  from  Argyle.  Since  the  most  powerful  chief  in  the 
kingdom  could  not  be  gained,  it  was  thought  necessary  that 
he  should  be  destroyed.  On  grounds  so  frivolous  that  even  the 
spirit  of  party  and  the  spirit  of  chicane  were  ashamed  of  them, 
he  was  brought  to  trial  for  treason,  convicted,  and  sentenced  to 
death.  The  partisans  of  the  Stuarts  afterwards  asserted  that  it 
was  never  meant  to  carry  this  sentence  into  effect,  and  that  the 
only  object  of  the  prosecution  was  to  frighten  him  into  ceding  his 
extensive  jurisdiction  in  the  Highlands.  Whether  James  de- 
signed, as  his  enemies  suspected,  to  commit  murder,  or  only,  as 
his  friends  affirmed,  to  commit  extortion  by  threatening  to  com- 
mit murder,  cannot  now  be  ascertained.  "  I  know  nothing  of 
the  Scotch  law,"  said  Halifax  to  King  Charles ;  "  but  this  I 
know,  that  we  should  not  hang  a  dog  here  on  the  grounds  on 
which  my  Lord  Argyle  has  been  sentenced."  * 

Argyle  escaped  in  disguise  to  England,  and  thence  passed 
over  to  Friesland.  In  that  secluded  province  his  father  had 
bought  a  small  estate,  as  a  place  of  refuge  for  the  family  in  civil 
troubles.  It  was  said,  among  the  Scots  that  this  purchase  had 
been  made  in  consequence  of  the  predictions  of  a  Celtic  seer,  to 
A^hom  it  had  been  revealed  that  Mac  Galium  More  would  one 
day  be  driven  forth  from  the  ancient  mansion  of  his  race  at 
Inverary.f     But  it  is  probable  that  the  politic  Marquess  had 

•  Proceedings  against  Argyle  in  the  Collection  of  State  Tiials  ;  Burnet,  i.  521  ; 
A  True  and  Plain  Account  of  the  Discoveries  made  in  Scotland,  ir.R!;  The 
Scotch  Mist  Cleared  ;  Sir  George  Mackenzie's  Vindication  ;  Lord  Fountainhall'a 
Chronoloiical  Notes. 

t  Information  of  Robert  Smith  in  the  Appendix  to  Sprat's  True  Accotmt. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  485 

been  warned  rather  by  the  signs  of  the  times  than  by  the  visions 
of  any  prophet.  In  Frieshxnd  Earl  Archibald  resided  during 
some  time  so  quietly  that  it  was  not  generally  known  whither 
he  had  fled.  From  his  retreat  he  carried  on  a  correspondence 
with  his  friends  in  Great  Britain,  was  a  party  to  the  Whig 
conspiracy,  and  concerted  with  the  chiefs  of  that  conspiracy  a 
plan  for  invading  Scotland.*  This  plan  had  ^oeen  dropped 
upon  the  detection  of  the  Rye  House  [dot,  but  became  agaiu  the 
subject  of  bis  thoughts  after  the  demise  of  the  crown. 

He  had,  during  his  residence  on  the  Continent,  reflected  much 
more  deeply  on  religious  questions  than  in  the  preceding  years 
of  his  life.  In  one  respect  the  effect  of  these  reflections  on  his 
mind  had  been  pernicious.  His  partiality  for  the  synodical 
form  of  church  government  now  amounted  to  bigotry.  When 
he  remembered  how  long  he  had  conformed  to  the  established 
worship,  he  was  overwhelmed  with  shame  and  remorse,  and 
showed  too  many  signs  of  a  disposition  to  atone  for  his  defection 
by  violence  and  intolerance.  He  had  however,  in  no  long  time, 
an  opportunity  of  proving  that  the  fear  and  love  of  a  higher 
Power  had  nerved  him  for  the  most  formidable  conflicts  by 
which  human  nature  can  be  tried. 

To  his  companions  in  adversity  his  assistance  was  of  the 
highest  moment.  Though  proscribed  and  a  fugitive,  he  was 
still,  in  some  sense,  the  most  powerful  subject  in  the  British 
dominions.  In  wealth,  even  before  his  attainder,  he  was  prob- 
ably inferior,  not  only  to  the  great  English  nobles,  but  to 
some  of  the  opulent  esquires  of  Kent  and  Norfolk.  But  his 
patriarchal  authority,  an  authority  which  no  wealth  could  give  and 
which  no  attainder  could  take  away,  made  In'm,  as  a  leader  of  an 
insurrection,  truly  formidable.  No  southern  lord  could  feel  any 
confidence  that,  if  he  ventured  to  resist  the  government,  even 
his  own  gamekeepers  and  huntsmen  would  stand  by  him.  An 
Earl  of  Bedford,  an  Earl  of  Devonshire,  could  not  engage  to 
bring  ten  men  into  the  field.  Mac  Galium  More,  penniless  and 
deprived  of  his  earldom,  might  at  any  moment,  raise  a  serious 

•  Tme  aod  PJaiu  Account  of  the  Piscoveries  inaije  w  Scotlauil, 


486  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

civil  war.  He  had  only  to  show  himself  on  the  coast  of  Lorn-, 
and  an  army  would,  in  a  few  days,  gather  round  him.  The  force 
which,  in  favourable  circumstances,  he  could  bring  into  the  field, 
amounted  to  five  thousand  fighting  men,  devoted  to  his  service, 
accustomed  to  the  use  of  target  and  broadsword,  not  afraid  to 
encounter  regular  troops  even  in  the  open  plain,  and  perhaps 
superior  to  regular  troops  in  the  qualifications  requisite  for  the 
defence  of  wild  mountain  passes,  hidden  in  mist,  and  torn  by 
headlong  torrents.  What  such  a  force,  well  directed,  could 
effect,  even  against  veteran  regiments  and  skilful  commanders, 
was  proved,  a  few  years  latei-,  at  Killiecrankie. 

But,  strong  as  was  the  claim  of  Argyle  to  the  confidence  of 
the  exiled  Scots,  there  was  a  faction  among  them  which  regard- 
ed him  with  no  friendly  feeling,  and  which  wished  to  make  use 
of  his  name  and  influence,  without  entrusting  to  him  any  real 
power.  The  chief  of  this  faction  was  a  lowland  gentleman, 
who  had  been  implicated  in  the  Whig  plot,  and  had  with  dif- 
ficulty eluded  the  vengeance  of  the  court,  Sir  Patrick  Hume,  of 
Polwarth,  in  Berwickshire.  Great  doubt  has'  been  thrown  on 
his  integrity,  but  without  sufficient  reason.  It  must,  however, 
be  admitted  that  he  injured  his  cause  by  perverseness  as  much 
as  he  could  have  done  by  treachery.  He  was  a  man  incapable 
alike  of  leading  and  of  following,  conceited,  captious,  and  wrong- 
headed,  an  endless  talker,  a  sluggard  in  action  against  the  enemy 
and  active  only  against  liis  own  allies.  With  Hume  was  closely 
connected  another  Scottish  exile  of  great  note,  who  had  many, 
of  the  same  faults,  Sir  John  Cochrane,  second  son  of  the  Earl 
of  Dundonald. 

A  far  higher  character  belonged  to  Andrew  Fletcher  of  Sal- 
toun,  a  man  distinguished  by  learning  and  eloquence,  distin- 
guished also  by  courage,  disinterestedness,  and  public  spirit, 
but  of  an  irritable  and  impracticable  temper.  Like  many  of 
his  most  illustrious  contemporaries,  Milton  for  example,  Har- 
rington, Marvel,  and  Sidney,  Fletcher  had,  from  the  misgovern, 
ment  of  several  successive  princes,  conceived  a  strong  aversion 
to  hereditary  monarchy.  Yet  he  was  no  democrat.  He  was 
the  head  of  an  ancient  Norman  house,  and  was  proud  of  his 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  487 

descent.  He  was  a  fine  speaker  and  a  fine  writer,  and  was  proud 
of  his  intellectual  superiority.  Both  in  his  character  of  gentleman, 
and  in  his  character  of  scholar,  he  looked  down  with  disdain  on  the 
common  people,  and  was  so  little  disposed  to  entrust  them  with 
political  power  that  he  thought  them  unfit  even  to  enjoy  per- 
sonal freedom.  It  is  a  curious  circumstance  that  this  man,  the 
most  honest,  fearless,  and  uncompromising  i-epublican  of  his 
time,  should  have  been  the  author  of  a  plan  for  reducing  a 
large  part  of  the  working  classes  of  Scotland  to  slavery.  He 
bore,  in  truth,  a  lively  resemblance  to  those  Roman  Senators 
who,  while  they  hated  the  name  of  King,  guarded  the  privileges 
,of  their  order  with  inflexible  pride  against  the  encroachments  of 
the  multitude,  and  governed  their  bondmen  and  bondwomen  by 
means  of  the  stocks  and  the  scourge. 

Amsterdam  was  the  place  where  the  leading  emigrants, 
Scotch  and  English,  assembled.  Argyle  repaired  thither  from 
Friesland,  Monmouth  from  Brabant.  It  soon  appeared  that  the 
fugitives  had  scarcely  anything  in  common  except  hatred  of  James 
and  itnpatience  to  return  from  banishment.  The  Scots  were  jeal- 
ous of  the  English,  the  English  of  the  Scots.  Monmouth's  high 
pretensions  were  offensive  to  Argyle,  who,  proud  of  ancient 
nobility  and  of  a  legitimate  descent  from  kings,  was  by  no 
means  inclined  to  do  homage  to  the  offspring  of  a  vagrant  and 
ignoble  love.  But  of  all  the  dissensions  by  which  the  little 
band  of  outlaws  was  distracted  the  most  serious  was  that  which 
arose  between  Argyle  and  a  portion  of  his  own  followers.  Some 
of  the  Scottish  exiles  had,  i  a  long  course  of  opposition  to 
tyranny,  been  excited  into  a  morbid  state  of  understanding  and 
temper,  which  made  the  most  just  and  necessary  restraint  in- 
supportable to  them.  They  knew  that  without  Argyle  they 
could  do  nothing.  They  ought  to  have  known  that,  unless 
they  wished  to  run  headlong  to  ruin,  they  must  either  repose 
full  confidence  in  their  leader;  or  relinquish  all  thoughts  of 
military  enterprise.  Experience  has  fully  proved  that  in  war 
every  operation,  from  the  greatest  to  the  smallest,  ought  to  be 
under  the  absolute  direction  of  one  mind,  and  that  every  subor- 
dinate agent,  in  his  degree,  ought  to  obey  implicitly,  strenuous* 


488  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

ly,  and  with  the  show  of  cheerfulness,  orders  which  he  disap 
proves,  or  of  which  the  reasons  are  kept  secret  from  him. 
Representative  assemblies,  public  discussions,  and  all  the  other 
checks  by  which,  in  civil  affairs,  rulers  are  restrained  from 
abusing  power,  are  out  of  place  in  a  camp.  Machiavel  justly 
imputed  many  of  the  disasters  of  Venice  and  Florence  to  the 
jealousy  which  led  those  republics  to  interfere  with  every  act 
of  their  generals.*  The  Dutch  practice  of  sending  to  an  army 
deputies,  without  whose  consent  no  great  blow  could  be  struck, 
was  almost  equally  pernicious.  It  is  undoubtedly  by  no  means 
certain  that  a  captain,  who  has  been  entrusted  with  dictatorial 
power  in  the  hour  of  peril,  will  quietly  surrender  that  power  in 
the  hour  of  triumph  ;  and  this  is  one  of  the  many  considerations 
which  ought  to  make  men  hesitate  long  before  they  resolve  to 
vindicate  public  liberty  by  the  sword.  But,  if  they  determine 
to  try  the  chance  of  war,  they  will,  if  they  are  wise,  entrust  to 
their  chief  that  plenary  authority  without  which  war  cannot  be 
well  conducted.  It  is  possible  that,  if  they  give  him  that  au-, 
thority,  he  may  turn  out  a  Cromwell  or  a  Napoleon.  Bift  it  is 
almost  certain  that,  if  they  withhold  from  him  that  authority, 
their  enterprises  will  end  like  the  enterprise  of  Argyle. 

Some  of  the  Scottish  emigrants,  heated  with  republican 
enthusiasm,  and  utterly  destitute  of  the  skill  necessary  to  the 
conduct  of  great  affairs,  employed  all  their  industry  and  in^ 
genuity,  not  in  collecting  means  for  the  attack  which  they  were 
about  to  make  on  a  formidable  enemy,  but  in  devising  restraints 
on  their  leader's  power  and  securities  against  his  ambition.  The 
selfcomplacent  stupidity  with  which  they  insisted  on  organising 
an  army  as  if  they  had  been  organising  a  commonwealth  would 
be  incredible  if  it  had  not  been  frankly  and  even  boastfully 
recorded  by  one  of  themselves. t 

At  length  all  differences  were  compromised.  It  was  deter- 
mined that  an  attempt  should  be  forthwith  made  on  the  western 
coast  of  Scotland,  and  that  it  should  be  promptly  followed  by  a 
descent  on  England. 

*   Discorsi  sopra  la  prima  Deca  di  Tito  Livio,  lib.  ii.  cap.  33. 
t  See  Sir  Patrick  Hume's  Narrative,  passim. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  489 

Argyle  was  to  hold  the  uominal  command  in  Scotland  :  but 
he  was  placed  under  the  control  of  a  Committee  which  reserved 
to  itself  all  the  most  important  parts  of  the  military  administra- 
tion. This  committee  was  empowered  to  determine  where  the 
expedition  should  land,  to  appoint  officers,  to  superintend  the 
levying  of  troops,  to  dole  out  provisions  and  ammunition.  All 
that  was  left  to  the  general  was  to  direct  the  evolutions  of  the 
army  in  the  field,  and  he  was  forced  to  promise  that  even  in  the 
field,  except  in  the  case  of  a  surprise,  he  would  do  nothing  with- 
out the  assent  of  a  council  of  war. 

Monmouth  was  to  command  in  En"land.  His  soft  mind  had, 
as  usual,  taken  an  impress  from  the  society  which  surrounded 
him.  Ambitious  hopes,  which  had  seemed  to  be  extinguished, 
revived  in  his  bosom.  He  remembered  the  affection  with  which 
he  had  been  constantly  greeted  by  the  common  people  in  town 
and  country,  and  expected  that  they  would  now  rise  by  hundreds 
of  thousands  to  welcome  him.  He  remembei'ed  the  good  will 
which  the  soldiers  had  always  borne  liim,  and  flattered  himself 
that  they  would  come  over  to  him  by  regiments.  Encouraging 
messages  reached  him  in  quick  succession  from  London.  He 
was  assui'ed  that  the  violence  and  injustice  with  which  the  elec- 
tions had  been  carried  on  had  driven  the  nation  mad,  that  the 
prudence  of  the  leading  Whigs  had  with  difficulty  prevented  a 
sanguinary  outbreak  on  the  day  of  the  coronation,  and  that  all 
the  great  Lords  who  had  supported  the  Exclusion  Bill  were  im- 
patient to  rally  round  him.  Wildman,  who  loved  to  talk  treason 
in  parables,  sent  to  say  that  the  Earl  of  Richmond,  just  two 
hundred  years  before,  had  landed  in  England  with  a  handful  of 
men,  and  had  a  few  days  later  been  crowned,  on  the  field  of 
Bosworth,  with  the  diadem  taken  from  the  head  of  Richard. 
Dan  vers  undertook  to  raise  the  City.  The  Duke  was  deceived 
into  the  belief  that,  as  soon  as  he  set  up  his  standard,  Bedford- 
shire, Buckinghamshire,  Hampshire,  Cheshire  would  rise  in 
arms.*  He  consequently  became  eager  for  the  enterprise  from 
which  a  few  weeks  before  he  had  shrunk.  His  countrymen  did 
not  impose  on  him  restrictions  so  elaborately  absurd  as  those 
*  Grey's  Narrative ;  Wade's  Confession,  Harl.  MS-  6845. 


490  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND 

which  the  Scotch  emigrants  had  devised.  All  that  was  required 
of  him  was  to  promise  that  he  would  not  assume  the  regal  title 
till  his  pretensions  has  been  submitted  to  the  judgment  of  a  free 
Parliament. 

It  was  determined  that  two  Englishmen,  Ayloffe  and  Rum 
bold,  should  accompany  Argyle  to  Scotland,  and  that  Fletchet 
should  go  with  Monmouth  to  England.  Fletcher,  from  the  be- 
ginning, had  augured  illof  the  enterprise  :  but  his  chivalrous  spirit 
would  not  suffer  him  to  decline  a  risk  which  his  friends  seemed 
eager  to  encounter.  When  Grey  repeated  with  approbation 
what  Wildmau  had  said  about  Richmond  and  Richard,  the  well 
read  and  thoughtful  Scot  justly  remarked  that  there  was  a  great 
difference  between  the  fifteenth  century  and  the  seventeenth. 
Richmond  was  assured  of  the  support  of  barons,  each  of  whom 
could  bring  an  army  of  feudal  retainers  into  the  field ;  and 
Richard  had  not  one  regiment  of  regular  soldiers.* 

The  exiles  were  able  to  raise,  partly  from  their  own  resources 
and  partly  from  the  contributions  of  well  wishers  in  Holland, 
a  sum  sufficient  for  the  two  expeditions.  Very  little  was  obtain- 
ed from  London.  Six  thousand  pounds  had  been  expected 
thence.  But  instead  of  the  money  came  excuses  from  Yfildman, 
which  ought  to  have  opened  the  eyes  of  all  who  were  not  wil- 
fully blind.  The  Duke  made  up  the  deficiency  by  pawning  his 
own  jewels  and  those  of  Lady  Wentworth.  Arms,  ammunition, 
and  provisions  were  bonght,  and  several  ships  which  lay  at 
Amsterdam  were  freighted.! 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  most  illustrious  and  the  most 
grossly  injured  man  among  the  British  exiles  stood  far  aloof 
from  these  rash  counsels.  .John  Locke  hated  tyranny  and 
persecution  as  a  philosopher  ;  but  his  intellect  and  his  temper 
preserved-him  from  the  violence  of  a  partisan.  He  had  lived 
on  confidential  terms  with  Shaftesbury,  and  had  thus  incurred 
the  displeasure  of  the  court.  Locke's  prudence  had,  however, 
been  such  that  it  would  have  been  to  little  purpose  to  bring 
him  even  before  the  corrupt  and  partial  ti-ibunals  of  that  age. 
In   <r-e  point,  however,  he  was  vulnerable.     He   was  a  student 

•  Burnet,  i.  631.  t  Grey's  Narrative. 


JAMES   THE    SECOND.  491 

of  Christ  Church  in  the  University  of  Oxford.  It  was  deter- 
mined to  di4ve  from  that  celebrated  college  the  greatest  man 
of -whom  it  could  ever  boast.  But  this  was  not  easy.  Locke 
had,  at  Oxford,  abstained  from  expressing  any  opinion  on  the 
politics  of  the  day.  Spies  had  been  set  about  him.  Doctors  of 
Divinity  and  Masters  of  Arts  had  not  been  ashamed  to  p<3rform 
the  vilest  of  all  oflfices,  that  of  watching  the  lips  of  a  companion 
in  order  to  report  his  words  to  his  ruin.  The  conversation  in 
the  hall  had  been  purposely  turned  to  irritating  topics,  to  the 
Exclusion  Bill,  and  to  the  character  of  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury, 
but  in  vain.  Locke  neither  broke  out  nor  dissembled,  but 
maintained  such  steady  silence  and  composure  as  forced  the 
tools  of  power  to  own  with  vexation  that  never  man  was  so 
complete  a  master  of  his  tongue  and  of  his  passions.  When  it 
Avas  found  that  treachery  could  do  nothing,  arbitrary  power  was 
used.  After  vainly  trying  to  inveigle  Locke  into  a  fault,  the 
government  resolved  to  punish  him  without  one.  Orders  came 
from  Whitehall  that  he  should  be  ejected ;  and  those  orders  the 
Dean  and  Canons  made  haste  to  obey. 

Locke  was  travelling  on  the  Continent  for  his  health  when  he 
learned  that  he  had  been  deprived  of  his  home  and  of  his  bread 
without  a  trial  or  even  a  notice.  The  injustice  with  which  he 
had  been  treated  would  have  excused  him  if  he  had  resorted  to 
violent  methods  of  redress.  But  he  was  not  to  be  blinded  by 
personal  resentment :  he  augured  no  good  from  the  schemes  of 
those  who  had  assembled  at  Amsterdam ;  and  he  quietly  j-e- 
paired  to  Utrecht,  where,  while  his  partners  in  misfortune  were 
planning  their  own  destruction,  he  employed  lumself  in  writing 
Ms  celebrated  letter  on  Toleration.* 

The  English  government  was  early  apprised  that  something 
was  in  agitation  among  the  outlaws.     An  invasion  of   England 

*  Le  Clerc's  Life  of  Locke ;  Lord  King's  Life  of  Locke  ;  Lord  Grenville'3 
Oxford  and  Locke.  Locke  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  Anabapist  Nicholas 
Look,  whose  name  was  spelled  Locke  in  Grey's  Confession,  and  who  is  mentioned 
in  the  Lansdowue  MS.  1152,  and  in  the  Buccleuch  narrative  appended  to  Mr. 
Pose's  dissertation.  I  should  hardly  think  it  necessary  to  make  this  remark,  but 
that  the  similarity  of  the  two  names  appears  to  have  misled  a  man  so  well  acquaint' 
ed.with  tlie  history  of  those  times  as  Speaker  Onslow.    See  his  note  on  Burnet,  i. 


492  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

seems  not  to  have  been  at  first  expected  ;  but  It  was  apprehended 
that  Argyle  would  shortly  appear  in  arms  among  his  clansmen. 
A  proclamation  was  accordingly  issued  directing  that  Scotland 
should  be  put  into  a  state  of  defence.  The  militia  was  ordered 
to  be  in  readiness.  All  the  clans  hostile  to  the  name  of  Camp^ 
bell  were  set  in  motion.  John  Murray,  Marquess  of  Athol,  was 
appointed  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Argyleshire,  and,  at  the  head  of  a 
great  body  of  his  followers,  occupied  the  castle  of  Inverary. 
Some  suspected  persons  were  arrested.  Others  were  compelled 
to  give  hostages.  Ships  of  war  were  sent  to  cruise  near  the 
i^le  of  Bute ;  and  part  of  the  army  of  Ireland  was  uoved  to 
the  coast  of  Ulster.* 

While  these  preparations  were  making  in  Scotland,  James 
called  into  his  closet  Arnold  Van  Citters,  who  had  long  resided 
hi  England  as  Ambassador  from  the  United  Provinces,  and  Ever- 
ard  Van  Dykvelt,  who,  after  the  death  of  Charles,  had  been  sent 
by  the  State  General  ou  a  special  mission  of  condolence  and 
congratulation.  The  King  said  that  he  had  received  from  un- 
questionable sources  intelligence  of  designs  which  were  forming 
against  the  throne  by  his  banished  subjects  in  Holland.  Some 
of  the  exiles  were  cutthroats,  whom  nothing  but  the  special 
providence  of  God  had  prevented  from  committing  a  foul  mur- 
der ;  and  among  tliem  was  the  owner  of  the  spot  which  had 
been  fixed  for  the  butchery,  "  Of  all  men  living,"  said  the 
King,  "  Argyle  has  the  greatest  means  of  annoymg  me  ;  and  of 
all  places  Holland  is  that  whence  a  blow  may  be  best  aimed 
against  me."  The  Dutch  envoys  assured  liis  Majesty  that  what 
he  had  said  should  instantlv  be  communicated  to  the  sovern- 
ment  which  they  represented,  and  expressed  their  full  confi- 
dence that  every  exertion  would  be  made  to  satisfy  him.f 

They  were  justified  in  expressing  this  confidence.  Both 
the  Prince  of  Orange  and  the  States  General,  were,  at  this  time, 
most  desirous  that  the  hospitality  of  their  country  should  not  be 
abused  for  purposes  of  which  the  English  government  could 
justly  complain.       James   had  lately  held  language   which  en- 

•Wodrow,  book  iii.  chap,  ix;  Ix)ndon  Gazette,  May  11,1685;  Barillon,  May  11-21, 
t  Kegister  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  States  General,  May  5-15,  1685 


JAMKS    THE    SECOND.  493 

couraged  the  hope  that  he  would  not  patiently  submit  t()  the 
ascendency  of  France.  It  seemed  probable  that  he  would  con- 
sent to  form  a  close  alliance  with  the  United  Provinces  and  the 
House  of  Austria.  There  was,  therefore,  at  the  Hague,  an  extreme 
anxiety  to  avoid  all  that  could  give  him  offence.  The  personal 
interest  of  William  was  also  on  this  occasion  identical  with  the 
interest  of  his  father  in  law. 

But  the  case  was  one  which  required  rapid  and  vigorous 
action  ;  and  the  nature  of  the  Batavian  institutions  made 
such  action  almost  impossible.  The  Union  of  Utrecht,  rudely 
formed,  amidst  the  agonies  of  a  revolution,  for  the  purpose  of 
meeting  immediate  exigencies,  had  never  been  deliberately 
revised  and  perfected  in  a  time  of  tranquillity.  Every  one  of 
the  seven  commonwealths  which  that  Union  had  bound  together 
retained  almost  all  the  rights  of  sovereignty,  and  asserted  those 
rights  punctiliously  against  the  central  government.  As  the 
federal  authorities  had  not  the  means  of  exacting  prompt  obedi- 
ence from  the  provincial  authorities,  so  the  provincial  authorities 
had  not  the  means  of  exacting  prompt  obedience  from  the  muni- 
cipal authorities.  Holland  alone  contained  eighteen  cities,  each 
of  which  was,  for  many  purposes,  an  independent  state,  jealous 
of  all  interference  from  without.  If  the  rulers  of  such  a  city 
received  from  the  Hague  an  order  which  was  unpleasing  to 
them,  they  either  neglected  it  altogether,  or  executed  it  languidly 
and  tardily.  In  some  town  councils,  indeed,  the  influence  of 
the  Prince  of  Orange  was  all  powerful.  But  unfortunately  the 
place  where  the  British  exiles  had  congregated,  and  where  their 
ships  had  been  fitted  out,  was  the  rich  and  populous  Amster- 
dam ;  and  the  magistrates  of  Amsterdam  were  the  heads  of  the 
faction  hostile  to  the  federal  government  and  to  the  House  of 
Nassau.  The  naval  administration  of  the  United  Provinces 
was  conducted  by  five  distinct  boards  of  Admiralty.  One  of 
those  boards  sate  at  Amsterdam,  was  partly  nominated  by  the 
authorities  of  that  city,  and  seems  to  have  been  entirely  ani- 
mated by  their  spirit. 

All  the  endeavours  of  the  federal  government  to  effect  what 
James  desired  were  frustrated  by  the  evasions  of  the  function- 


494  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

aries  of  Amsterdam,  and  by  the  blunders  of  Colonel  Bevil 
Skelton,  who  had  just  arrived  at  the  Hague  as  envoy  from 
England.  Skelton  had  been  born  in  Holland  during  the  Eng- 
lish troubles,  and  was  thei-efore  supposed  to  be  peculiarly  quali- 
fied for  his  post ;  *  but  he  was,  in  truth,  unfit  for  that  and  for 
every  other  diplomatic  situation.  Excellent  judges  of  character 
pronounced  him  to  be  the  most  shallow,  fickle,  passionate,  pre- 
sumptuous, and  garrulous  of  men.f  He  took  no  serious  notice 
of  the  proceedings  of  the  refugees  till  three  vessels  which  had 
been  equipped  for  the  expedition  to  Scotland  were  safe  out  of 
the  Zuyder  Zee,  till  the  arms,  ammunition,  and  provisions  were 
on  board,  and  till  the  passengers  had  embarked.  Then,  instead 
of  applying,  as  he  should  have  done,  to  the  States  General,  who 
sate  close  to  his  own  door,  he  sent  a  messenger  to  the  magis- 
trates of  Amsterdam,  with  a  request  that  the  suspected  ships 
might  be  detained.  The  magistrates  of  Amsterdam  answered 
that  the  entrance  of  the  Zuyder  Zee  was  out  of  their  jurisdic- 
tion, and  referred  him  to  the  federal  government.  It  was 
notorious  that  this  was  a  mere  excuse,  and  that,  if  there  had 
been  any  real  wish  at  the  Stadthouse  of  Amsterdam  to  prevent 
Argyle  from  sailing,  no  difficulties  would  have  been  made. 
Skelton  now  addressed  himself  to  the  States  General.  They 
showed  every  disposition  to  comply  with  his  demand,  and,  as 
the  case  was  urgent,  departed  from  the  course  which  they  ordi- 
narilv  observed  in  the  transaction  of  business.  On  the  same 
day  on  which  he  made  his  application  to  them,  an  order,  drawn 
in  exact  conformity  with  his  request,  was  despatched  to  the 
Admiralty  of  Amsterdam.  But  this  order,  in  consCv/uence  of 
some  misinformation,  did  not  correctly  describe  the  situation  of 
the  ships.  They  were  said  to  be  in  the  Texel.  They  were  in 
the  Vlie.  The  Admiralty  of  Amsterdam  made  this  error  a  plea 
for  doing  nothing ;  and,  before  the  error  could  be  rectified,  the 
three  ships  had  sailed.  $ 

*  This  is  mentioued  iiV  his  credentials,  dated  on  the  16th  of  March,  1684-6. 
+  Bonrepaux  to  Seignelay,  February  4-14, 1686. 

t  Avaux  Neg.  m^'^  '  May  1-11,  May  515, 1686  ;  Sir  Patrick  Hume's  Narrative  ; 
Letter  from  the  Admiralty  of  Amsterdam  to  the  States  General,  dated  June  20, 
1685 ;  Memorial  of  Skelton,  delivered  to  the  States  Geueral,  May  10, 1685. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  495 

The  last  hours  which  Argyle  passed  on  the  coast  of  Holland 
^ere  hours  of  great  anxiety.  Near  him  lay  a  Dutch  man 
,)f  war  whose  broadside  would  in  a  moment  have  put  an  end 
to  his  expedition.  Round  his  little  fleet  a  boat  was  rowing,  in 
jvhich  were  some  persons  with  telescopes  whom  he  suspected 
to  be  spies.  But  no  effectual  step  was  taken  for  the  purpose  of 
detaining  him  ;  and  on  the  afternoon  of  the  second  of  May  he 
stood  out  to  sea  before  a  favourable  breeze. 

The  voyage  was  prosperous.  On  the  sixth  the  Orkneys 
were  in  sight.  Argyle  very  unwisely  anchored  off  Kirkwall, 
and  allowed  two  of  his  followers  to  go  on  shore  there.  The 
Bishop  ordered  them  to  be  arrested.  The  refugees  proceeded 
to  hold  a  long  and  animated  debate  on  this  misadventure  :  for, 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  their  expedition,  however 
languid  and  irresolute  their  conduct  might  be,  they  never  in 
debate  wanted  spirit  or  perseverance.  Some  were  for  an  attack 
on  Kirkwall.  Some  were  for  proceeding  without  delay  to 
Argyleshire.  At  last  the  Earl  seized  some  gentlemen  who 
lived  near  the  coast  of  the  island,  and  proposed  to  the  Bishop 
an  exchange  of  prisoners.  The  Bishop  returned  no  answer ; 
and  the  fleet,  after  losing  three  days,  sailed  away. 

This  delay  was  full  of  danger.  It  was  s^jeedily  known  at 
Edinburgh  that  the  rebel  squadron  had  touched  at  the  Orkneys. 
Troops  were  instantly  put  in  motion.  When  the  Earl  reached 
his  own  province,  he  found  that  preparations  had  been  made  to 
repel  him.  At  Dunstaffnage  he  sent  his  second  son  Charles  on 
shore  to  call  the  Campbells  to  arms.  But  Charles  returned  with 
gloomy  tidings.  The  herdsmen  and  fishermen  were  indeed  ready 
to  rally  round  Mac  Callum  More ;  but,  of  the  heads  of  the  clan, 
some  were  in  confinement,  and  others  had  fled.  Those  gentle- 
men who  remained  at  their  homes  were  either  well  affected  to 
the  government  or  afraid  of  moving,  and  refused  even  to  see  the 
son  of  their  chief.  From  Dunstaffnage  the  small  armament 
proceeded  to  Campbelltown,  near  the  southern  extremity  of  the 
peninsula  of  Kintyre.  Here-  the  Earl  published  a  manifesto, 
drawn  up  in  Holland,  under  the  direction  of  the  Committee,  by 
James  Stewart,  a  Scotch  advocate,  whose  pen  was,  a  few  months 


496  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

later,  employed  in  a  very  different  way.  In  this  paper  were 
set  forth,  with  a  strength  of  language  sometimes  approaching  to 
scurrility,  many  real  and  some  imaginary  grievances.  It  was 
hinted  that  the  late  King  had  died  by  poison.  A  chief  object  of 
the  expedition  was  declared  to  be  the  entire  suppression,  not 
only  of  Popery,  but  of  Prelacy,  which  was  termed  the  most  bit- 
ter root  and  offspring  of  Popery ;  and  all  good  Scotchmen  were 
exhorted  to  do  valiantly  for  the  cause  of  their  country  and  of 
their  God. 

Zealous  as  Argyle  was  for  what  he  considered  as  pure  religion, 
he  did  not  scruple  to  practise  one  rite  half  Popish  and  half 
Pagan.  The  mysterious  cross  of  yew,  first  set  on  fire,  and  then 
quenched  in  the  blood  of  a  goat,  was  sent  forth  to  summon  all 
the  Campbells,  from  sixteen  to  sixty.  The  isthmus  of  Tarbet 
was  appointed  for  the  place  of  gathering.  The  muster,  though 
small  indeed  when  compared  with  what  it  would  have  been  if 
the  spirit  and  strength  of  the  clan  had  been  unbroken,  was  still 
formidable.  The  whole  force  assembled  amounted  to  about 
eighteen  hundred  men.  Argyle  divided  his  mountaineers  into 
three  regiments,  and  proceeded  to  appoint  officers. 

The  bickerings  which  had  begun  in  Holland  had  never  been 
intermitted  during  the  whole  course  of  the  expedition ;  but  at 
Tarbet  they  became  more  violent  than  ever.  The  Committee 
wished  to  interfere  even  with  the  patriarchal  dominion  of  the 
Earl  over  the  Campbells,  and  would  not  allow  him  to  settle  the 
military  rank  of  his  kinsmen  by  his  own  authority.  While 
these  disputatious  meddlers  tried  to  wrest  from  him  his  power 
over  the  Highlands,  they  carried  on  their  own  correspondence 
with  the  Lowlands,  and  received  and  sent  letters  which  were 
never  communicated  to  the  nominal  General.  Hume  and  his 
confederates  had  reserved  to  themselves  the  superintendence  of 
the  stores,  and  conducted  this  important  part  of  the  adminis- 
tration of  war  with  a  laxity  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from 
dishonesty,  suffered  the  arms  to  be  spoiled,  wasted  the  provisions, 
and  lived  riotously  at  a  time  whenthey  ought  to  have  set  to  all 
beneath  them  an  example  of  abstemiousness. 

The  great  question  was  whether  the  Highlands  or  the  Low- 


JAMES   THE    SECOND.  497 

lands  should  be  the  seat  oi  war.  The  Earrs  first  object  was 
to  establish  his  authority  over  his  own  domains,  to  drive  out  the 
invading  clans  which  had  been  poured  from  Perthshire  into  Ar- 
gyleshire,  and  to  take  possession  of  the  ancient  seat  of  his  family 
at  Inverary.  He  might  then  hope  to  have  four  or  five  thousand 
claymores  at  his  command.  With  such  a  force  he  would  be  able 
to  defend  that  wild  country  against  the  whole  power  of  the  king- 
dom of  Scotland,  and  would  also  have  secured  an  excellent  base 
for  offensive  operations.  This  seems  to  have  been  the  wisest 
course  open  to  him.  Rumbold,  who  had  been  trained  in  an  ex- 
cellent military  school,  and  wlio,  as  an  Englishman,  might  be  sup- 
posed to  be  an  impartial  umpire  between  the  Scottish  factions,  did 
all  in  his  power  to  strengthen  the  Earl's  hands.  But  Hume  and 
Cochrane  were  utterly  impracticable.  Their  jealousy -of  Argyle 
was,  in  truth,  stronger  than  their  wish  for  the  success  of  the 
expedition.  They  saw  that,  among  his  own  mountains  and 
lakes,  and  at  the  head  of  an  army  chiefly  composed  of  his  own 
tribe,  he  would  be  able  to  bear  down  their  opposition,  and  to 
exercise  the  full  authority  of  a  General.  They  muttered  that 
the  only  men  who  had  the  good  cause  at  heart  were  the  Low- 
landers,  and  that  the  Campbells  took  up  arms  neither  for  liberty 
cor  for  the  Church  of  God,  but  for  Mac  Galium  More  alone. 

Cochrane  declared  that  he  would  go  to  Ayrshire  if  he 
tvent  by  himself,  and  with  nothing  but  a  pitchfork  in  his  hand. 
Argyle,  after  long  resistance,  consented,  against  his  better  judg- 
ttient,  to  divide  his  little  array.  He  remained  with  Rumbold  in 
the  Highlands.  Cochrane  and  Hume  were  at  the  head  of  the 
force  which  sailed  to  invade  the  Lowlands. 

Ayrshire  was  Cochrane's  object :  but  the  coast  of  Ayrshire 
was  guarded  by  English  frigates;  and  the  adventurers  were 
under  the  necessity  of  running  up  the  estuary  of  the  Clyde  to 
Greenock,  then  a  small  fishing  village  consisting  of  a  single  row 
of  thatched  hovels,  now  a  great  and  flourishing  port,  of  which  the 
customs  amount  to  more  than  five  times  the  whole  revenue  which 
the  Stuarts  derived  from  the  kingdom  of  Scotland.  A  party  of 
militia  lay  at  Greenock  :  but  Cochrane,  who  wanted  provisions, 
was  determined  to  land.     Hume  objected.     Cochrane  was  per- 

32 


498  HISTORY    OF   ENGLA»~«rf 

emptory,  and  ordered  an  officer,  named  I'4|)\kiL  iwe,  to  take 
iwenty  men  ia  a  boat  to  the  shore.  But  the  wrangi'cg  spirit 
of  the  leaders  had  infected  all  ranks.  Elphinstone  aviswered 
that  he  was  bound  to  obey  only  reasonable  commands,  that  he 
considered  this  command  as  unreasonable,  and,  in  short,  th&t  he 
would  not  go.  Major  Fullarton,  a  brave  man,  esteemed  by  all 
parties,  but  peculiarly  attached  to  Argyle,  undertook  to  lanvl 
with  only  twelve  men,  and  did  so  in  spite  of  a  fire  from  tht» 
coast.  A  slight  skirmish  followed.  The  militia  fell  back. 
Cochrane  entered  Greenock  and  procured  a  supply  of  meal,  but 
found  no  disposition  to  insurrection  among  the  people. 

In  fact,  the  state  of  public  feeling  in  Scotland  was  not  such 
as  the  exiles,  misled  by  the  infatuation  common  in  all  ages  to 
exiles,  had  supposed  it  to  be.  The  government  was,  indeed, 
hateful  and  hated.  But  the  malecontents  were  divided  into  par- 
ties which  were  almost  as  hostile  to  one  another  as  to  their 
rulers  ;  nor  was  any  of  those  parties  eager  to  join  the  mvaders. 
Many  thought  that  the  insurrection  had  no  chance  of  success, 
The  spirit  of  many  had  been  effectually  broken  by  long  and 
»ruel  oppression.  There  was,  indeed,  a  class  of  enthusiasts  who 
were  little  in  the  habit  of  calculating  chances,  and  whom  oppres- 
sion had  not  tamed  but  maddened.  But  these  men  saw  little 
difference  between  Argj^le  and  James.  Their  wrath  had  been 
heated  to  such  a  tem^^erature  that  what  every  body  else  would 
^iave  called  boiling  zeal  seemed  to  them  Laodicean  lukewarm- 
iiess.  The  Earl's  pasc  life  had  been  stained  by  what  they  re- 
garded as  the  vilest  apostasy.  The  very  Highlanders  whom  he 
now  summoned  to  extirpate  Prelacy  he  had  a  few  years  before 
summoned  to  defend  it.  And  were  slaves  who  knew  nothinar 
and  cared  nothing  about  religion,  who  were  ready  to  fight  for 
synodical  government,  for  Episcopacy,  for  Popery,  just  as  Mac 
Galium  More  might  be  pleased  to  command,  fit  allies  for  the 
people  of  God?  The  manifesto,  indecent  and  intolerant  as  was 
its  tone,  was,  in  the  view  of  these  fanatics,  a  cowardly  and 
woi'ldly  performance.  A  settlement  such  as  Argyle  would  have 
made,  such  as  was  afterwards  made  by  a  mightier  and  happier 
deliverer,  seemed  to  them  not  worth  a  struggle.     They  wanted 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  499 

not  only  Ireeaom  of  conscience  for  themselves,  but  absolute 
dominion  over  the  consciences  of  others  ;  not  only  the  Presby- 
terian doctrine,  polity-  and  worship,  but  the  Covenant  in  its 
utmost  rigour.  Nothing  would  content  them  but  that  every 
end  for  which  civil  society  exists  should  be  sacrificed  to  the  as- 
cendency  of  a  theological  system.  One  who  believed  no  form 
of  church  government  tj  be  vv^rth  a  breach  of  Christian  charity, 
and  who  recommended  comprehension  and  toleration,  was  in 
their  phrase,  haltu)g  between  Jehovah  and  Baal.  One  who 
condemned  such  acts  as  the  murder  of  Cardinal  Beatoun  and 
Archbishop  dharpe  fell  into  the  same  sin  for  which  Saul  had 
been  rejected  from  behig  King  over  Israel.  All  the  rules,  by 
which,  among  oivilised  and  Christian  men,  the  horrors  of.  war 
are  mitigated,  were  abominations  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord. 
Quarter  was  to  be  neither  taken  nor  triven.  A  Malay  running 
a  muck,  a  mad  dog  pursued  by  a  crowd,  were  the  models  to  be 
imitated  by  warriors  fighting  in  just  self-defence.  To  reasons 
such  as  guide  the  conduct  of  statesmen  and  generai.s  the  minds 
of  these  zealots  were  absolutely  impervious.  That  a  man  should 
venture  to  urge  such  reasons  was  sufficient  evidence  that  he 
was  not  one  of  the  faithful.  It  the  divine  blessing  were  with- 
held, little  would  be  effected  by  crafty  politicians,  by  veteran 
captains,  by  cases  of  arms  from  Holland,  or  by  regiments  of 
unregenerate  Jelts  from  the  mountains  of  Lorn.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  Lord's  time  were  indeed  come,  he  could  still, 
as  of  old,  cause  '.he  foolish  things  of  the  world  to  confound  the 
wise,  and  could  save  alike  by  many  and  by  few.  The  broad- 
swords of  Athol  and  the  baj^onets  of  Claverhouse  would  be  put 
to  rout  by  weapons  as  insignificant  as  the  sling  of  David  or  the 
pitcher  of  Gideon.* 

Cochrane,  having  found  it  impossible  to  raise  the  population 
on  the  south  of  the  Clyde,  rejoined  Argyle,  who  was  in  the 
island  of  Bute.     The  Earl  now  again  proposed  to  make  an  at- 


*  If  any  person  is  inclined  to  suspect  that  I  have  exaggerated  the  absurdity 
and  ferocity  of  those  meu,  I  would  ndviae  him  to  read  two  books,  which  will  con. 
vinee  him  that  I  have  rather  softened  than  overcharged  the  portrait,  the  Hind 
Let  Loose,  and  Faithful  Contendings  Displayed. 


i>OQ  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

tempt  upon  luverary.  Again  he  encountered  a  pertinacious 
opposition.  Tlie  seamen  sided  with  Hume  and  Cochrane.  The 
Highlanders  were  absolutely  at  the  command  of  their  chieftain. 
There  was  reason  to  fear  that  the  two  parties  would  come  to 
blows  ;  and  the  dread  of  such  a  disaster  induced  the  Committee 
to  make  some  concession.  The  castle  of  Ealan  Ghieriir,  situa- 
ted  at  the  mouth  of  Loch  Riddan,  was  selected  to  be  the  chief 
place  of  arms.  The  military  stores  were  disembarked  there. 
The  squadron  was  moored  close  to  the  walls  in  a  place  where 
it  was  protected  by  rocks  and  shallows  such  as,  it  was  thought, 
no  frigate  could  pass.  Outworks  were  thrown  up.  A  battery 
was  planted  with  some  small  guns  taken  from  the  ships.  The 
command  of  the  fort  was  most  unwisely  given  to  Elphinstone, 
who  had  already  proved  himself  much  more  disposed  to  argue 
with  his  commanders  than  to  fight  the  enemy. 

And  now,  during  a  few  hours,  there  was  some  show  of  vigour. 
Rumbold  took  the  castle  of  Ardkinglass.  The  Earl  skirmished 
successfully  with  Athol's  troops,  and  was  about  to  advance  on 
Inverary,  when  alarming  news  from  the  ships  and  factions  in 
the  Committee  forced  him  to  turn  back.  The  King's  frigates 
had  come  nearer  to  Ealan  Ghierig  than  had  been  thought  possi- 
ble. The  Lowland  gentlemen  positively  refused  to  advance 
further  into  the  Highlands.  Argyle  hastened  back  to  Ealan 
Ghierig.  There  he  proposed  to  make  an  attack  on  the  frigates. 
His  ships,  indeed,  were  ill  fitted  for  such  an  encounter.  But 
they  would  have  been  supported  by  a  flotilla  of  thirty  largo 
fishing  boats,  each  well  manned  with  armed  Highlanders.  The 
Committee,  however,  refused  to  listen  to  this  plan,  and  effect- 
ually counteracted  it  by  raising  a  mutiny  among  the  soldiers. 

All  was  now  confusion  and  despondency.  The  provisions  had 
been  so  ill  managed  by  the  Committee  that  there  was  no  longer 
food  for  the  trooi)S,  The  Highlanders  consequently  deserted 
by  hundreds;  and  the  Earl,  brokenhearted  by  his  misfortunes, 
yielded  to  the  urgency  of  those  who  still  pertinaciously  insisted 
that  he  should  march  into  the  Lowlands, 

The  little  army  therefore  hastened  to  the  shore  of  Loch  Long', 
passed  that  inlet  bv  nig-ht  in  boats,  and  landed  in  Dumbarton* 


AHTA  BARBARA.  CAIilFOflN!. 

lXJ±2JT_ 

JAMES    THE    SECOND.  "501 

shire.  Ilitlior,  on  the  following  morning,  came  news  that  thfl 
frigates  had  forced  a  passage,  that  all  the  Earl's  ships  had  been 
taken,  and  that  Elphinstone  had  fled  from  Ealan  Ghierig  with- 
out  a  blow,  leaving  the  castle  and  stores  to  the  enemy. 

All  that  remained  was  to  invade  the  Lowlands  under  every 
disadvantage.  Argyle  resolved  to  make  a  bold  push  for  Glas- 
gow. But,  as  soon  as  this  resolution  was  announced,  the  very 
men,  who  had,  up  to  that  moment,  been  urging  him  to  hasten 
into  the  low  country,  took  fright,  argued,  remonstrated,  and 
when  argument  and  remonstrance  proved  vain,  laid  a  scheme 
for  seiznig  the  boats,  making  their  own  escape,  and  leaving 
their  General  and  his  clansmen  to  conquer  or  perish  unaided. 
This  scheme  failed  ;  and  the  poltroons  who  had  formed  it  were 
compelled  to  share  with  braver  men  the  risks  of  the  last  ven- 
ture. 

During  the  march  through  the  country  which  lies  between 
Loch  Long  aiul  Loch  Lomond,  the  insurgents  were  constantly 
infested  by  parties  of  militia.  Some  skirmishes  took  place,  in 
which  the  Earl  had  the  advantage  ;  but  the  bands  which  he  re- 
pelled, falling  back  before  him,  spread  the  tidings  of  his  ap- 
proach; and,  soon  after  he  had  crossed  the  river  Leven,  he  found 
a  strong  body  of  regular  and  irregular  troops  prepared  to  en- 
counter him. 

He  was  for  giving  battle.  Ayloffe  was  of  the  same  opinion. 
Hume,  on  the  other  hand,  declared  that  to  fioht  would  be  mad- 
ness.  lie  saw  one  regiment  in  scarlet.  More  might  be  behind. 
To  attack  such  a  force  was  to  rush  on  certain  death.  The  best 
course  was  to  remain  quiet  till  night,  and  then  to  give  the  enemy 
the  slip. 

A  sharp  altercation  followed,  which  was  with  difficulty  qui- 
eted by  the  mediation  of  Rumbold.  It  was  now  evening.  The 
hostile  armies  encamped  at  no  great  distance  from  each  other. 
The  Earl  ventured  to  propose  a  uight  attack,  and  was  again 
overruled. 

Since  it  was  determined  not  to  night,  nothing  was  left  but  to 
take  the  siep  which  Hume  had  recommended.  There  was  a 
chance   that,  by  decamping  secretly,  and  hastening   all  night 


502  HISTORY   OF   ENGLANB. 

across  heaths  and  morasses,  the  Earl  raight  gain  many  miles 
on  the  enemy,  and  might  reach  Glasgow  without  further  ol> 
struction.  The  watch  fires  were  left  burning;  and  the  march 
began.  And  now  disaster  followed  disaster  fast.  The  guides 
mistook  the  tracls  across  the  moors,  and  led  the  army  into 
boggy  ground.  Military  order  could  not  be  preserved  by  un- 
disciplined and  disheartened  soldiers  under  a  dark  sky,  and 
on  a  treacherous  and  uneven  soil.  Panic  after  panic  spread 
through  the  broken  ranks.  Every  sight  and  sound  was 
thought  to  hidicate  the  approach  of  pursuers.  Some  of  the 
officers  contributed  to  spread  the  terror  which  it  was  their 
duty  to  calm.  The  army  had  become  a  mob ;  and  the  mob 
imelted  fast  away.  Great  numbers  fled  under  cover  of  the 
night.  Rumbold  and  a  few  other  brave  men  whom  no  danger 
could  have  scared  lost  their  way,  and  were  unable  to  rejoin  the 
main  body.  When  the  day  broke,  only  five  hundred  fugitives, 
wearied  and  disj^irited,  assembled  at  Kilpatrick. 

All  thought  of  prosecuting  the  war  was  at  an  end :  and  it 
was  plain  that  the  chiefs  of  the  expedition  would  have  sufficient 
difficulty  in  escaping  with  their  lives.  They  fled  in  different 
directions.  Hume  reached  the  Continent  in  safety.  Cochrane 
was  taken  and  sent  up  to  London.  Argyle. hoped  to  find  a 
secure  asylum  under  the  roof  of  one  of  his  old  servants  who 
lived  near  Kilpatrick.  But  this  hope  was  disappointed  ;  and 
he  was  forced  to  cross  the  Clyde.  He  assumed  the  dress  of  a 
peasant  and  pretended  to  be  the  guide  of  Major  Fullarton,  whose 
courageous  fidelity  was  proof  to  all  danger.  The  friends 
journeyed  together  through  Renfrewshire  as  far  as  Inchinnan. 
At  that  place  the  Black  Cart  and  the  White  Cart,  two  streams 
which  now  flow  through  prosperous  towns,  and  turn  the 
wheels  of  many  factories,  but  which  then  held  their  quiet  course 
through  moors  and  sheepwallcs,  mingle  before  they  join  the 
Clyde.  The  only  ford  by  which  the  travellers  could  cross  was 
guarded  by  a  party  of  militia.  Some  questions  were  asked. 
Fullarton  tried  to  draw  suspicion  on  himself,  in  order  that  his 
companion  might  escape  unnoticed.  But  the  minds  of  the 
questioners  misgave   them  that  the   guide   was  not  the  rude 


JAlUl.^S    THE    SECOND.  503 

clown  that  he  seemed.  Tpoy  laid  hands  on  him.  He  broke 
loose  and  sprang  into  the  wat^'-,  but  was  instantly  chased.  He 
stood  at  bay  for  a  short  time  agH.wstfive  assailants.  But  he  had 
no  arms  except  his  pocket  pistol?,  and  they  were  so  wet,  in  con- 
sequence of  his  plunge,  that  they  would  not  go  off.  He  was 
struck  to  the  ground  with  a  broadsV'ord,  and  secured. 

He  owned  himself  to  be  the  EpiI  of  Argyle,  probably  in 

the  hope  that  his  great  name  would  ei-.ite  the  awe  and  pity  of 

those  who  had  seized  him.     Aiyi  indeed  tliw  were  much  moved. 

For  they  were  plain  Scotchmen  of  humble  rank,  and,  though  in 

arms  for   the  crown,  probably  cherished  a  p'vference  for  the 

Calvinistic    church    government    and    worship,   and   had   been 

accustomed  to  reverence  their  captive  as  the  headv^f  an  illustrious 

house  and  as   a  champion    of    the   Protestant  religion.     But, 

though  they  were  evidently  touched,  and  though  some,  of  them 

even  wept,  they  were  not  disposed  to  relinquish  a  large  .^eward 

and  to  incur  the  vengeance  of  an  implacable  government.     They 

therefore  conveyed  their  prisoner  to  Renfrew.     The  man  who 

bore  the  chief   part  in  the  arrest  was  named  Riddell.     On  th»s 

account  the   whole  race   of   Riddells  was,  during  more  than  -^ 

century,  held  in   abhorrence  by  the  great  tribe  of  Campbell 

Within  living  memory,  when  a  Riddell  visited  a  fair  in  Argyle 

shire,  he  found  it  necessary  to  assume  a  false  name. 

And  now  commenced  the  brightest  part  of  Argyle's  career. 
His  enterprise  had  hitherto  brought  on  him  nothing  but 
reproach  and  derision.  His  great  error  was  that  he  did  not 
resolutely  refuse  to  accept  the  name  without  the  power  of  a 
general.  Had  he  remained  quietly  at  his  retreat  in  Friesland, 
he  would  in  a  few  years  have  been  recalled  with  honour  to  his 
country,  and  woidd  have  been  conspicuous  among  the  ornaments 
and  the  props  of  constitutional  monarchy.  Had  he  conducted 
his  expedition  according  to  his  own  views,  and  carried  with  him 
Ao  followers  but  such  as  were  prepared  implicitly  to  obey  all  his 
orders,  he  might  possibly  have  effected  something  great.  For 
ivhat  he  wanted  as  a  captain  seems  to  have  been,  not  courage, 
;aor  activity,  nor  skill,  but  simply  authority.  He  should  have 
^nown  that  of  all  wants  this  is  the  most  fatal.     Armies  have 


604:  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

triumphed  under  leaders  wlio  possessed  no  very  eminent  q«;iii 
fications.     But  what  army  commanded  by  a  debating  club  eva* 
escaped  discomfiture  and  disgrace  ? 

Tlie  great  calamity  which  had  fallen  on  Argyle  had  this 
advantage,  that  it  enabled  him  to  show,  by  jiroofs  not  to  be 
mistaken,  what  manner  of  man  he  was.  From  the  day  when 
he  quitted  Friesland  to  the  day  when  his  followers  separated 
at  Kilpatrick,  he  had  never  been  a  free  agent.  He  had  borne 
the  responsibility  of  a  long  series  of  measures  which  his 
judgment  disaj)proved.  Now  at  length  he  stood  alone. 
Captivity  had  restored  to  him  the  noblest  kind  of  liberty,  the 
liberty  of  gov3rning  himself  in  all  his  words  and  actions 
accordmg  to  his  own  sense  of  the  right  and  of  the  becoming. 
From  that  moment  he  became  as  one  inspired  with  new 
wisdom  and  virtue.  His  intellect  seemed  to  be  strengthened 
and  concentrated,  his  moral  character  to  be  at  once  elevated 
and  softened.  The  insolence  of  the  conquerors  spared  no- 
thing that  could  try  the  temper  of  a  man  proud  of  ancient  no- 
bility and  of  patriarchal  dominion.  The  prisoner  was  di-agged 
through  Edinburgh  in  triumph.  He  walked  on  foot,  barehead- 
ed, up  the  whole  length  of  that  stately  street  which,  overshadow- 
ed by  dark  and  gigantic  piles  of  stone,  leads  from  Holyrood 
House  to  the  Castle.  Before  hun  marched  the  hangman,  bear- 
ing the  ghastly  instrument  which  was  to  be  used  at  the  quar- 
tering block.  The  victorious  party  had  not  forgotten  that, 
thirty-five  years  before  this  time,  the  father  of  Argyle  had 
been  at  the  head  of  the  faction  which  put  Montrose  to  death. 
Before  that  event  the  houses  of  Graham  and  Campbell  had 
borne  no  love  to  each  otlier;  and  they  had  ever  since  been  at 
deadly  feud.  Care  was  taken  that  the  prisoner  should  pass 
through  the  same  gate  and  the  same  streets  through  which 
Montrose  had  be:n  led  to  the  same  doom.*  When  the  Earl 
reached  the  Castle  his  legs  were  put  in  irons,  and  he  was  in- 
formed that  he  had  but  a  few  days  to  live.     It  had  been  deter* 

•  A  few  words  which  were  in  the  first  five  editions  have  been  omitted  in  thi& 
place.  Here  and  in  another  passage  I  had,  as  Mr.  Aytoun  has  observed,  mistaken 
the  City  Guards,  which  were  eounnanded  by  an  olticer  named  Graham,  for  thf 
Dragoons  of  Graham  of  Glaverhoiis(?- 


JAME3   THE    SECOND.  505 

mined  not  to  bring  him  to  trial  for  his  recent  offence,  but  to 
put  him  to  death  under  the  sentence  pronounced  against  him 
several  years  before,  a  sentence  so  flagitiously  unjust  that  the 
most  servile  and  obdurate  lawyers  of  that  bad  age  could  not 
speak  of  it  without  shame. 

But  neither  the  ignominious  procession  up  tlie  High  Street, 
nor  the  near  view  of  death,  had  power  to  disturb  the  gentle  and 
majestic  patience  of  Argyle.  His  fortitude  was  tried  by  a  still 
more  severe  test.  A  paper  of  interrogatories  was  laid  before 
him  by  order  of  the  Privy  Council.  He  replied  to  those  ques- 
tions to  which  he  could  reply  without  danger  to  any  of  his 
friends,  and  refused  to  say  more.  He  was  told  that  unless  he 
returned  fuller  answers  he  should  be  put  to  the  torture.  James, 
who  was  doubtless  sorry  that  he  could  not  feast  his  own  eyes 
with  the  sight  of  Argyle  in  the  boots,  sent  down  to  Edinburgh 
positive  orders  that  nothing  should  be  omitted  which  could 
wring  out  of  the  traitor  information  against  all  who  had  been 
concerned  in  the  treason.  But  menaces  were  vain.  "With  tor- 
ments and  deatTi  in  immediate  prospect  Mac  Galium  More 
thought  far  less  of  himself  than  of  his  poor  clansmen.  "  I  was 
busy  this  day,"  ho  wrote  from  his  cell,  "  treating  for  them,  and 
in  some  hopes.  Dut  this  evening  orders  came  that  I  must  die 
upon  Monday  or  Tuesday  ;  and  I  am  to  be  put  to  the  torture  if 
I  answer  not  all  questions  upon  oath.  Yet  I  hope  God  shall 
support  me." 

The  torture  was  not  inflicted.  Perhaps  the  magnanimity  of 
the  victim  had  moved  the  conquerors  to  unwonted  compassion. 
He  himself  remarked  that  at  first  they  had  been  very  harsh  to  ■ 
him,  but  that  they  soon  began  to  treat  him  with  respect  and 
kindness.  God,  he  said,  had  melted  their  hearts.  It  is  certain 
that  he  did  not,  to  save  himself  from  the  utmost  cruelty  of  his 
enemies,  betray  any  of  his  friends.  On  the  last  morning  of  his 
life  he  wrote  these  wo.ds  :  "  I  have  named  none  to  their  disad- 
vantage.    I  thank  God  he  hath  supported  me  wonderfully  ! '' 

He  composed  his  own  epitaph,  a  short  poem,  full  oi  meaning 
and  spirit,  simple  and  forcible  in  style,  and  not  contemptible  in 
versification.     In  this  little  piece  he  complained  that,  though 


506  HISTORY    OF   KNGLAND. 

his  enemies  had  repeatedly  decreed  his  death,  his  friends  naci 
heen  still  more  cruel.  A  comment  on  these  expressions  is  to  be 
found  in  a  letter  which  he  addressed  to  a  lady  residing  in  Hol- 
land. She  had  furnished  him  with  a  large  sum  of  money  for 
his  expedition,  and  he  thought  her  entitled  to  a  full  explanation 
of  the  causes  which  had  led  to  his  failure.  lie  acquitted  his 
coadjutors  of  treachery,  but  described  their  folly,  their  igno- 
rance, and  their  factious  perverseness,  in  terms  wliich  their  own 
testimony  has  since  proved  to  have  been  richly  deserved.  He 
afterwards  doubted  whether  he  had  not  used  language  too  se- 
vere to  become  a  dying  Christian,  and,  in  a  separate  paper, 
begged  his  friend  to  suppress  what  he  had  said  of  these  men. 
*'  Only  this  I  must  acknowledge,"  he  mildly  added ;  "  they 
were  not  governable." 

Most  of  his  few  remaining  hours  were  passed  in  devotion. 
and  in  affectionate  intercourse  with  some  members  of  his  family. 
He  professed  iw>  repentance  on  account  of  his  last  enterprise,  but 
bewailed,  with  great  emotion,  his  former  compliance  in  spiritual 
things  with  the  pleasure  of  the  government.  •  He  had,  he  said, 
been  justly  punished.  One  who  had  so  long  been  guilty  of  cow- 
ardice and  dissimulation  was  not  worthy  to  be  the  instrument  of 
salvation  to  the  State  and  Church.  Yet  the  cause,  he  frequently 
repeated,  was  the  cause  of  God,  and  would  assuredly  triumph. 
"  1  do  not,"  he  said,  "  take  on  myself  to  be  a  prophet.  But  I 
have  a  strong  impression  on  my  spirit,  that  deliverance  will  come 
very  suddenly."  It  is  not  strange  that  some  zealous  Presby- 
terians should  have  laid  tip  his  Baying  in  their  hearts,  and  should, 
at  a  later  period,  have  attributed  it  to  divine  inspiration. 

So  effectually  had  religious  faith  and  hope,  co  operating  with 
natural  courage  and  equanimity,  composed  his  spirits,  that,  on 
the  very  day  on  which  he  was  to  die,  he  dined  with  appetite, 
conversed  with  gaiety  at  table,  and,  after  his  last  meal,  lay 
down,  as  he  was  wont,  to  take  a  short  slumber,  in  order  that 
his  body  and  mind  might  be  in  full  vigour  when  he  should 
mount  the  scaffold.  At  this  time  one  of  the  Lords  of  the  Coun- 
cil, who  had  probably  been  bred  a  Presbyterian,  and  had  been 
seduced  by  interest  to  join  in  oppressing  tho  Ch'^ch  of  which 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  607 

he  had  once  been  a  member,  came  to  the  Castle  with  a  message 
from  his  brethren,  and  demanded  admittance  to  the  P^arl.  It 
was  answered  that  the  Earl  was  asleep.  The  Privy  Councillor 
thonght  that  this  was  a  subterfuge,  and  insisted  on  entering. 
The  door  of  the  cell  was  softly  opened ;  and  there  lay  Argyle 
on  the  bed,  sleeping,  in  his  irons,  the  placid  sleep  of  infancy. 
The  conscience  of  the  renegade  smote  him.  He  turned  away 
sick  at  heart,  ran  out  of  the  Castle,  and  took  refuge  in  the 
dwelling  of  a  lady  of  his  family  who  lived  hard  by.  There  he 
flung  himself  on  a  couch,  and  gave  himself  up  to  an  agony  of 
remorse  and  shame.  His  kinswoman,  alarmed  by  his  looks  and 
groans,  thought  that  he  had  been  taken  with  sudden  illness, 
and  begged  him  to  drink  a  cup  of  sack.  "  No,  no,"  he  said  ; 
"  that  wi  do  me  no  good."  She  prayed  him  to  tell  her  what 
had  disturbed  him.  "  I  have  been,"  he  said,  "  in  Argyle's  pris- 
on. I  have  seen  him  within  an  hour  of  eternity,  sleeping  as 
sweetly  as  ever  man  did.     But  as  foi  me ." 

And  now  the  Earl  had  risen  from  his  bed,  and  Lad  prepared 
himself  for  what  was  yet  to  be  endured.  He  was  first  brought 
down  the  High  Street  to  the  Council  House,  where  he  was  to 
remain  during  the  short  interval  which  was  still  to  elapse  before 
the  execution.  During  that  interval  he  asked  for  pen  and  ink, 
and  wrote  to  liis  wife  :  "  Dear  heart,  God  is  unchangeable  :  He 
liath  always  been  good  and  gracious  to  mc :  and  no  place  alters 
it.  Forgive  me  all  my  faults  •  and  now  comfort  thyself  in  Him, 
in  whom  only  true  comfort  is  to  be  found.  The  Lor-^,  be  with 
thee,  bless  and  comfort  thee,  my  dearest.     Adieu." 

It  was  now  time  to  leave  the  Council  Hnnse.  The  divines 
who  attended  the  prisoner  were  not  of  his  own  persuasion  ; 
but  he  listened  to  them  with  civility,  and  exhorted  them  to 
caution,  their  flocks  against  those  doctrines  which  all  Protestant 
churches  unite  in  condemning.  He  mounted  the  scaffold,  where 
the  rude  old  guillotine  of  Scotland,  called  the  Maiden,  awaited 
him,  and  addressed  the  people  in  a  speech,  tinctui-ed  with  the 
peculiar  phraseology  of  his  sect,  but  breathing  the  spirit  of 
serene  piety.  His  enemies,  he  said,  he  forgave,  as  he  hoped  to 
be  forgiven.     Only  a  single   acrimonious  expression  escaped 


60S  HISTOKY   OF   ENGLAND. 

him.  One  of  the  episcopal  clergymen  who  attended  him  went 
to  the  edge  of  the  scaffold,  and  called  out  in  a  loud  voice,  '•  My 
Lord  dies  a  Protestant."  "  Yes,"  said  the  Earl,  stepping  for- 
ward, "•  and  not  only  a  Protestant,  but  with  a  heart  hatred  of 
Popery,  of  Prelacy,  and  of  all  superstition."  He  then  embraced 
his  friends,  put  into  their  hands  some  tokens  of  remembi'ance 
for  his  wife  and  children,  kneeled  down,  laid  his  head  on  the 
block,  prayed  during  a  few  minutes,  and  gave  the  signal  to  the 
executioner.  His  head  was  fixed  on  the  top  of  the  Tolbooth, 
where  the  head  of  Montrose  had  formerly  decayed.* 

The  head  of  the  brave  and  sincere,  thougli  not  blameless 
Rumbold,  was  already  on  the  West  Port  of  Edinburgh.  Sur- 
rounded by  factious  and  cowardly  associates,  he  had,  through 
the  whole  campaign,  behaved  himself  like  a  soldier  trained  in 
the  school  of  the  great  Protector,  had  in  council  strenuously 
-supported  the  authority  of  Argyle,  and  had  in  the  field  been  dis- 
tinguished by  tranquil  intrepidity.  After  the  dispersion  of  the 
army  he  was  set  upon  b}'^  a  party  of  militia.  He  defended  liim- 
self  desperately,  and  would  have  cut  his  way  through  them,  had 
they  not  hamstringed  his  horse.  He  was  brought  to  Edinburgli 
mortally  wounded.  The  wish  of  the  government  was  that  he 
should  be  executed  in  P^ngland.  But  he  was  so  near  death, 
that,  if  he  was  not  hanged  in  Scotland,  he  could  not  be  hanged 
at  allj  and  the  pleasure  of  hanging  him  was  one  which  the 
conquerors  could  not  bear  to  forego.  It  was  indeed  not  to  be 
expected  that  Ihey  would  show  much  lenity  to  one  who  was  re- 
garded as  the  chief  of  the  Rye  House  plot,  and  who  was  the 
owner  of  the  buikling  from  which  that  plot  took  its  name :  but 
the  insolence  with  which  they  treated  the  dying  man  seems  to 
our  more   humane  age   almost  incredible.     One  of  the  Scotch 

♦The  authors  from  whom  I  have  taken  the  history  of  Argj'le's  expedition  are 
Sir  Patrick  Hume,  who  was  an  eyewitness  of  what  he  related,  and  Wodrow,  who 
had  access  to  materials  of  the  greatest  value,  among  which  were  the  Earl's  own 
papers.  Wherever  there  is  a  question  of  veracity  hetween  Argyle  and  Hume,  f 
have  no  doubt  that  Argyle's  narrative  ought  to  be  followed. 

See  also  Burnet,  i.  631,  and  the  life  of  Bresson,  published  by  Dr.  Mac  Crie. 
The  account  of  the  Scotch  rebellion  in  the  Life  of  James  the  Second,  is  a  ridicu- 
lous romance,  not  written  by  the  King  himself,  nor  derived  from  his  papers,  but 
comno-ed  by  a  Jacobite  who  did  jiot  even  take  the  trouble  to  look  at  a  map  ©f 
the  seat  of  war. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  509 

Privy  Councillors  told  him  that  he  was  a  confounded  villain. 
"  I  am  at  peace  with  God,"  answered  liumbold,  calmly  ;  "  how 
then  can  I  be  confounded  ?  " 

He  was  hastily  tried,  convicted,  and  sentenced  to  be  hanced 
and  quartered  within  a  few  hours,  near  the  City  Cross  in  the 
High  Street.  Though  unable  to  stand  without  the  support  of 
two  men,  he  maintained  his  fortitude  -to  the  last,  and  under  the 
gibbet  raised  his  feeble  voice  against  Popery  and  tyranny  with 
such  vehemence  that  the  officers  ordered  the  drums  to  strike 
up,  lest  the  people  should  hear  him.  He  was  a  friend,  he  said, 
to  limited  monarchy.  But  he  never  would  believe  that  Provi- 
dence had  sent  a  few  men  into  the  world  ready  booted  and 
spurred  to  ride,  and  millions  ready  saddled  and  bridled  to  be 
ridden.  "  I  desire,"  he  cried,  "  to  bless  and  magnify  God's  holy 
name  for  this,  that  I  stand  here,  not  for  any  wrong  that  I  have 
done,  but  for  adhering  to  his  cause  in  an  evil  day.  If  every  hair  of 
my  head  were  a  man,  in  this  quarrel  I  would  venture  them  all." 

Both  at  his  trial  and  at  his  execution  he  spoke  of  assassina- 
tion with  the  abhorrence  which  became  a  good  Christian  and  a 
brave  soldier.  He  had  never,  he  protested,  on  the  faith  of  a 
dying  man,  harboured  the  thought  of  committing  such  villany. 
But  he  frankly  owned  that,  in  conversation  with  his  fellow  con- 
spirators, he  had  mentioned  his  own  house  as  a  place  where 
Charles  and  James  might  with  advantage  be  attacked,  and  that 
much  had  been  said  on  the  subject,  though  nothing  had  been 
determined.  It  may  at  first  sight  seem  that  this  acknowledg- 
ment is  inconsistent  with  his  declaration  that  he  had  always 
regarded  assassination  with  horror.  But  the  truth  appears  to 
be  that  he  was  imposed  upon  by  a  distinction  which  deluded 
many  of  his  contemporaries.  Nothing  would  have  induced  him 
to  put  poison  into  the  food  of  the  two  princes,  or  to  poniard 
.them  in  their  sleep.  But  to  make  an  unexpected  onset  on  the 
troop  of  Life  Guards  which  surrounded  the  royal  coach,  to 
exchange  sword  cuts  and  pistol  shots,  and  to  take  the  chance  of 
slaying  or  of  being  slain,  was,  in  his  view,  a  lawful  military 
operation.  Ambuscades  and  surprises  were  among  the  ordinary 
incidents  of  vv^ar.  Every  old  soldier,  Cavalier  or  Roundhead,  had 


510  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

been  engaged  in  such  eDterprises.  If  in  the  skirmish  the  King 
should  fall,  he  wouhJ  fall  by  fair  lighting  and  not  by  murder. 
Precisely  the  same  reasoning  was  employed,  after  the  Revolu- 
tion, by  James  himself  and  by  some  of  his  most  devoted  follow- 
ers, to  justify  a  wicked  attempt  on  the  life  of  William  the 
Third.  A  band  of  Jacobites  was  commissioned  to  attack  the 
Prince  of  Orange  in  his  winter  quarters.  The  meaning  latent 
under  this  specious  phrase  was  that  the  Prince's  throat  was  to 
be  cut  as  he  went  in  his  coach  from  Richmond  to  Kensinsfton. 
It  may  seem  strange  that  such  fallacies,  the  dregs  of  the  Jesuiti- 
cal casuistry,  should  have  had  power  to  seduce  men  of  heroic 
spirit,  both  Whigs  and  Tories,  into  a  crime  on  which  divine  and 
human  laws  have  justly  set  a  peculiar  note  of  infamy.  But  no 
sophism  is  too  gross  to  delude  minds  distempered  by  party 
spirit.* 

Argyle,  who  survived  Rumbold  a  few  hours,  left  a  dying 
testimony  to  the  virtues  of  the  gallant  Englishman.  "  Poor 
Rumbold  Avas  a  great  support  to  me,  and  a  brave  man,  and  died 
Christianly."  f 

Ayloflfe  showed  as  much  contempt  of  death  as  either  Argyle 
or  Rumbold  :  but  his  end  did  not,  like  theirs,  edify  pious  minds. 
Though  political  sympathy  had  drawn  him  towards  the  Puri- 
tans, he  had  no  religious  sympathy  with  them,  and  was  indeed 
regarded  by  them  as  little  better  than  an  atheist.  He  belonged 
to  that  section  of  the  Whigs  which  sought  for  models  rather 
among  the  patriots  of  Greece  and  Rome  than  among  the  proph- 
ets  and  judges  of  Israel.     He  was  taken  prisoner,  and  carried 

*  "Wodrow,  III.  ix.  10  ;  Western  Martyrology  ;  Burnet,  i.'633  ;  Fox's  History, 
Appendix  iv.  I  can  find  no  way.  except  that  indicated  in  the  text,  of  reconciling 
Rumbold's  denial  that  he  had  ever  admitted  into  his  mind  the  thought  of  assas- 
sination witli  his  confession  that  he  had  himself  mentioned  his  own  house  as  a 
convenient  place  for  an  attack  on  the  royal  brothers.  The  distinction  which  I 
suppose  him  to  have  taken  was  certainly  taken  by  another  Rye  House  conspirator, 
who  was,  like  him,  an  old  soldier  of  the  Commonwealth,  Captain  W^alcot.  Ou 
Walcot's  trial,  West,  the  witness  for  the  crown,  said,  "  Captain,  you  did  agree  to 
be  one  of  those  that  were  to  fight  the  Guards."  "  What,  then,  was  the  reason," 
asked  Chief  Justice  Peniberton,  "  that  he  would  not  kill  the  King?"  He  said," 
answered  West,  "  that  it  was  a  base  thing  to  kill  a  n^ked  roan,  and  he  would  not 
doit." 

t  Wodrow,  lU.  ix,  9. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  511 

to  Glasgow.  There  he  attempted  to  destroy  himself  with  a 
small  penknife :  but  though  he  gave  himself  several  wounds, 
iioue  of  them  proved  mortal,  and  he  had  strength  enough  left 
to  bear  a  journey  to  London.  He  was  brought  before  the 
Privy  Council,  and  interrogated  by  the  King,  but  had  too  much 
elevation  of  mind  to  save  himself  by  informing  against  others. 
A  story  was  current  among  the  "Whigs  that  the  King  said, 
"You  had  better  be  frank  with  me,  Mr.  Ayloffe.  You  know 
that  it  is  in  my  power  to  pardon  you."  Then,  it  was  rumoured, 
the  captive  broke  his  sullen  silence,  and  answered,  "  It  may  be 
in  your  power  ;  but  it  is  not  in  your  nature."  He  was  executed 
under  his  old  outlawry  before  the  gate  of  the  Temple,  and  died 
with  stoical  composure.* 

In  the  meantime  the  vengeance  of  the  conquerors  was  merci- 
lessly wreaked  on  the  people  of  Argyleshire.  Many  of  the 
Campbells  were  hanged  by  Athol  without  a  trial ;  and  he  was 
with  difficulty  restrained  by  the  Privy  Council  from  taking 
more  lives.  The  country  to  the  extent  of  thirty  miles  round 
Inverary  was  wasted.  Houses  were  burned :  the  stones  of 
mills,  were  broken  to  pieces  :  fruit  trees  were  cut  down,  and  the 
very  roots  seared  with  fire.  The  nets  and  fishing  boats,  the 
sole  means  by  which  many  inhabitants  of  the  coast  subsisted, 
were  destroyed.  More  than  three  hundred  rebels  and  malecon- 
tents  were  ti'an sported  to  the  colonies.  Many  of  them  were' 
also  sentenced  to  mutilation.  On  a  single  day  the  hangman  of 
Edinburgh  cut  off  the  ears  of  thirty-five  prisoners.  Several 
women  were  sent  across  the  Atlantic  after  being  first  branded 
in  the  cheek  with  a  hot  iron.  It  was  even  in  contemplation  to 
obtain  an  act  of  Parliament  proscribing  the  name  of  Campbell, 
as  the  name   of   Macgregor    had  been  proscribed  eighty  years 

before. t 

Argyle's  expedition  appears  to  have  produced  little  sensa- 
tion in  the  south  of  the  island.  The  tidings  of  his  landing 
reached  London  just  before  the  English  Parliament  met.     The 

»  Wade's  narrative,  Harl.  MS.  6845  ;  Burnet,  i.  634  ;  Van  Citters's  Despatch 
of  N^^if'  1685  ;  Luttrell's  Diary  of  the  same  datei 

t  Wodrow,  III.  ix.  4,  and  til.  5x.  10.  Wodrow  gives  from  the  Acts  of  Council 
the  names  of  all  the  prisoners  who  were  transported,  mutilated  or  branded. 


53  2  HISTORY    OP   ENGLAND. 

KiDg  mentioned  the  news  from  the  throne  ;  and  the  Houses 
assm*ed  him  that  they  would  stand  by  him  against  every  enemy. 
Nothing  more  was  required  of  them.  Over  Scotland  they  had 
no  authority  ;  and  a  war  of  which  the  theatre  was  so  distant, 
and  of  which  the  event  might,  almost  from  the  first,  be  easily 
foreseen,  excited  only  a  languid  interest  in  London. 

But,  a  week  before  the  final  dispersion  of  Argyle's  army, 
England  was  agitated  by  the  news  that  a  more  formidable 
invader  had  landed  on  her  own  shores.  It  had  been  agreed 
among  the  refugees  that  Monmouth  should  sail  from  Ilolland 
six  days  after  the  departure  of  the  Scots.  He  had  deferred 
his  expedition  a  short  time,  probably  in  the  hope  that  most  of 
the  troops  in  the  south  of  the  island  would  be  moved  to  the 
north  as  soon  as  war  broke  out  in  the  Highlands,  and  that  he 
should  find  no  force  ready  to  oppose  him.  When  at  length  he 
was  desirous  to  proceed,  the  wind  had  become  adverse  i 
violent. 

While  his  small  fleet  lay  tossing  in  the  Texel,  a  contest  was 
going  on  among  the  Dutch  authorities.  The  States  General 
and  the  Prince  of  Orange  were  on  one  side,  the  Town  Council 
and  Admiralty  of  Amsterdam  on  the  other. 

Skelton  had  delivered  to  the  States  General  a  list  of  the 
refugees  whose  residence  in  the  United  Provinces  caused  unea- 
siness to  his  master.  The  States  General,  anxious  to  grant 
every  reasonable  request  which  James  could  make,  sent  copies 
of  the  list  to  the  provincial  authorities.  The  provincial  au- 
thorities sent  copies  to  the  municipal  authorities.  The  magis- 
trates of  all  the  towns  were  directed  to  take  such  measures  as 
might  prevent  the  proscribed  Whigs  from  molesting  the  English 
government.  In  general  those  directions  were  obeyed.  At 
Rotterdam  in  particular,  where  the  influence  of  William  was 
all  powerful,  such  activity  was  shown  as  called  forth  warm  ac- 
knowledgments from  James.  But  Amsterdam  was  the  chief 
seat  of  the  emigrants  ;  and  the  governing  body  of  Amsterdam 
would  see  nothing,  hear  nothing,  know  of  nothing.  The  High 
Bailiff  of  the  city,  who  was  himself  in  daily  communication  with 
Ferguson,  reported  to  the  Hague  that  he  did  not  know  where 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  513 

to  find  a  single  one  of  the  refugees  ;  and  with  this  excuse  the 
federal  government  was  forced  to  be  content.  The  truth  was 
that  the  lilnglish  exiles  were  us  well  known  at  Amsterdam, 
and  as   mach   stared   at  in    the   streets,  as  if  they  hud   beej;* 


nese. 


* 


Chi 

A  few  days  later,  Skelton  received  orders  from  his  Court 
to  request  that,  in  consequence  of  the  dangers  which  threatened 
his  master's  throne,  the  three  Scotch  regiments  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  United  Provinces  might  be  sent  to  Great  Britain 
without  delay.  He  applied  to  the  Prince  of  Orange  ;  and 
the  prince  undertook  to  manage  the  matter,  but  predicted  that 
Amsterdam  would  raise  some  difficulty.  The  prediction 
proved  correct.  The  deputies  of  Amsterdam  refused  to  con- 
sent, and  succeeded  in  causing  some  delay.  But  the  question 
was  not  one  of  those  on  which,  by  the  constitution  of  therepvib- 
lic,  a  single  city  could  prevent  the  wish  of  the  majority  frorr. 
being  carried  into  effect.  The  influence  of  William  prev.-^dled; 
and  the  troops  were  embarked  with  great  expedition.! 

Skelton  was  at  the  same  time  exerting  himself,  not  indeed 
very  judiciously  or  temperately,  to  stop  the  ships  which  the 
English  refugees  had  fitted  out.  He  expostulated  in  warm 
tei'ms  with  the  Admiralty  of  Amsterdam.  The  negligence  of 
that  board,  he  said,  had  already  enabled  one  band  of  rebels  to 
invade  Britain.     For  a  second   error   of  the   same   kind  there 

*  Skelton's  letter  is  dated  the  7-17th  of  May  1C8G.  It  will  be  found,  together 
with  a  letter  of  the  Si-hout  oi-  High  Bailiff  of  Amsterdam,  in  a  little  volume  pub- 
lished a  few  months  later,  and  entitled,  "  liistoire  des  Evenemens  Tragiques 
d'Angleterre."  The  documents  inserted  in  that  \york  are,  as  far  as  I  have  exam- 
ined them,  given  exactly  from  the  Dutch  archives,  except  that  Skelton's  French, 
wliich  was  not  the  purest,  is  slightly  corrected.    See  also  Grey's  Narrative. 

<;joodei)ough,  on  hi.s  examination  after  the  battle  of  Sedgemoor,  said,  "The 
iScnout  of  Amsterdam  was  a  particular  friend  to  this  last  design."  Lansdowne 
MS.  1152. 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  refute  those  writers  who  represent  the  Prince  of 
Orange  as  an  accomplice  in  Monmouth's  enterprise.  The  circumstance  on  which 
they  chiefly  rely  is  that  the  authorities  of  Amsterdam  took  no  effectual  steps  for 
preventing  tho  expedition  from  sailing.  This  circumstance  is  in  truth  the  strong- 
est proof  that  the  expedition  was  not  favoured  by  William.  No  person,  not  pro- 
foundly ignorant  of  the  institutions  and  politics  of  Holland,  would  hold  theStad- 
tholder  answerable  for  the  proceedings  of  the  heads  of  the  Loevestein  party. 

t  Avnnv  Ncg.  .Tune  7-17.  S-ls,  U--24,  1G85  ;  Letter  -f  the  Prmcc  of  I  )ra']ge  t« 
Lord  Rochester,  June  9,  1685. 

33 


514  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

could  be  no  excuse.  He  peremptorily  demanded  that  a  large 
vessel,  named  the  Helderenbergh,  might  be  detained.  It  \va» 
pretended  that  this  vessel  was  bound  for  the  Canaries.  But, 
in  truth,  she  had  been  freighted  by  Monmouth,  carried  twenty< 
six  guns,  and  was  loaded  with  arms  and  ammunition.  The 
Admiralty  of  Amsterdam  replied  that  the  liberty  of  trade  and  nav- 
igation was  not  io  be  restrained  for  light  reasons,  and  that  the 
Helderenbergh  could  not  be  stopped  without  an  order  from  the 
States  General,  Skelton,  whose  uniform  practice  seems  to  have 
been  to  begin  at  the  wrong  epd,  now  had  recourse  to  the  States 
General.  The  States  General  gave  the  necessary  orders.  Then 
the  Admiralty  of  Amsterdam  pretended  that  there  was  not  a 
sufficient  naval  force  in  the  Texel  to  seize  so  large  a  ship  as  the 
Helderenbergh,  and  suffered  Monmouth  to  sail  unmolested.* 

The  weather  was  bad :  the  voyage  was  long;  and  several 
English  men  of  war  were  cruising  in  the  channel.  But  Mon- 
mouth  escaped  both  the  sea  and  the  enemy.  As  he  passed  by 
the  cliffs  of  Dorsetshire,  it  was  thought  desirable  to  send  a  boat 
to  the  beach  with  one  of  the  refugees  named  Thomas  Dare. 
This  man,  though  of  low  mind  and  manners,  had  great  influence 
at  Taunton.  He  was  directed  to  hasten  thither  across  the  coun- 
try, and  to  apprise  his  friends  that  Monmouth  would  soon  be  on 

English  ground. t 

On  the  morning  of  the  eleventh  of  June  the  Helderenbergh, 
accompmied  by  two  smaller  vessels,  appeared  off  the  port  of 
Lyme.  That  town  is  a  small  knot  of  steep  and  narrow  alleys, 
lying  on  a  coast  wild,  rocky,  and  beaten  by  a  stormy  sea.  The 
place  was  then  chiefly  remarkable  for  a  pier  which,  in  the  days 
of  the  Plantagenets,  had  been  constructed  of  stones,  unhewn 
and  uncemented.  This  ancient  work,  known  by  the  name  of 
the  Cob,  enclosed  the  only  haven  where,  in  a  space  of  many 
miles,  the  fishermen  could  take  refuge  from  the  tempests  of  the 
Channel. 

»  Van  Citters,  June  9-19,  June  12-22,  1085.  The  correspondence  of  .Skelton 
with  the  States  General  and  with  the  Admiralty  of  Amsterdam  is  in  the  ar-,hive» 
at  the  Flague.  Some  pieces  will  he  found  in  the  Evfenemens  Tragiques  dV  I'gle 
erre.    See  also  Burnet,  i.  fi^O. 

t  Wade's  Confession  in  the  Hardwicke  Papers  ;  Harl.  MS.  6845. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND. 

The  appearance  of  the  three  ships,  i'oreign   built   a;:d    v. 
out  colours,  perplexed   the  inhabitants  of    Lyme  ;  and    tiu 
easiness   increased   when   it  was  found   that   th.'    Cuaouii 
officers,  who  had  gone  on  board  according  to  usage,  did    i 
turn.     The  town's  2>eople  repaired  to  the  cliffs,  und  g.izcd    < 
and  anxiously,  but  could  find  no   solution  of   the   niystf:\. 
length  seven  boats  put  off  from  the  largest  of  the  strange  ve  .-v 
and  rowed  to  the  shore.     From  these  boats  landed  about  eighi_\ 
men,  well  armed  and  appointed.     Among  them  were  Monmouth, 
Grey,  Fletcher,  Ferguson,  Wade,  and  Anthony  Buyse,  an  officer 
who  had  been  in  the  service  of  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg.* 

Monmouth  commanded  silence,  kneeled  down  on  the  shore, 
thanked  God  for  having  preserved  the  friends  of  liberty  and 
pure  religion  from  the  perils  of  the  sea,  and  implored  the  divine 
blessing  on  what  was  yet  to  be  done  by  land.  Pie  then  drew 
his  sword,  and  led  his  men  over  the  cliffs  into  the  town. 

As  soon  as  it  was  known  under  what  leader  and  for  what 
purpose  the  expedition  came,  the  enthusiasm  of  the  populace 
burst  through  all  restraints.  The  little  town  was  in  an  uproar 
with  men  running  to  and  fro,  and  shouting  "  A  Monmouth  !  a 
Monmouth!  the  Protestant  religion!  "  Meanwhile  the  ensign 
of  the  adventurers,  a  blue  flag,  was  set  up  in  the  marketplace. 
The  military  stores  were  deposited  in  the  town  hall ;  and  a 
Declaration  setting  forth  the  objects  of  the  expedition  was  read 
from  the  Cross.f 

This  Declaration,  the  masterpiece  of  Ferguson's  genius,  was 
not  a  grave  manifesto  such  as  ought  to  be  put  forth  by  a  leader 
drawing  the  sword  for  a  great  public  cause,  but  a  libel  of  the 
lowest  class,  both  in  sentiment  and  language.  $  It  contained 
undoubtedly  many  just  charges  against  the  government.  But 
these  charges  were  set  forth  in  the  prolix  and  inflated  style  of  a 

*  See  Buyse's  evidence  against  Monmouth  and  Fletclier  in  tlie  Collection  of 
State  Trials. 

t  Journals  of  the  House  of  Commons,  June  13,  1685 ;  Hail.  MS.  6845 ;  Lans- 
downe  MS.  1152. 

t  Burnet,  i.  641 ;  Goodenough's  confession  in  the  Lansdowne  MS.  1152.  Copies 
of  the  Declaration,  as  originally  printed,  are  very  rare  ;  but  there  is  one  in  the 
British  Museum. 


516  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

bad  i^amphlet ;  and  the  paper  contained  other  charges  of  •which 
the  whole  disgrace  falls  on  those  who  made  them.     The  Duke 
of   York,  it  was   positivel_y  affirmed,  had  burned  down   London, 
had    strangled  Godfrey,  had   cut  the   throat  of   Essex,  and  had 
poisoned   the  late   King.     On  account   of  those  villanous  and 
annatural   crimes,  but  chiefly    of    that  execrable   fact,  the  late 
horrible    and  barbarous   parricide, — such  was   the    copiousness 
and  such  the  felicity  of  Ferguson's  diction, — James  was  declared 
a  mortal  and  bloody  enemy'  a  tyrant,  a  murderer,  and  an  usurper. 
No  treaty  should  be  made  with  him.     The  sword  should  not  be 
sheathed  till  he  had  been  brought  to  condign   punishment  as  a 
traitor.     The  government  should  be  settled  on  principles  favour- 
able to  liberty.     All  Protestant  sects  should  be  tolerated.     The 
forfeited  charters  should    be  restored.     Parliament    should  be 
held  annually,  and  should  no  longer  be  prorogued  or  dissolved 
by  royal  caprice.   The  only  standing  force  should  be  the  militia : 
the  militia   should   be    commanded   by   the    Sheriffs  ;  and   tb.e 
Sheriffs   should   be   chosen    by  the   freeholders       Finally  Mon- 
mouth declared  that  he  could  prove  himself  to  have  been  born 
in  !;i\v;'ui  wedlock,  and   to   be,  liy  right  of   blood.  King  of  Eng- 
land, l/ut   that,  for   the   present,  he   waived  his  claims,  that  he 
would  leave  them   to    the  indgmcat  of  a  free   Parliament,  and 
that,  in  the   meantime,  he  desired  to  be  considered  only  as  the 
Captain  General  of  the  English  Protestants,  who  were  hi  arms 
against  tyranny  and  Popery. 

Disgraceful  as  this  manifesto  was  to  those  who  put  it  forth, 
it  was  not  unskilfully  framed  for  the  purpose  of  stimulating  the 
passions  of  the  vulgar.  In  the  West  the  effect  was  great.  The 
gentry  and  clergy  of  that  part  of  England  were  indeed,  with 
few  ex^-i^ptions,  Tories.  But  the  yeomen,  the  traders  of  the 
towns,  tlie  peasants,  and  the  artisans  were  generally  animated 
by  the  old  Roundhead  spirit.  Many  of  them  were  Dissenters, 
and  had  been  goaded  by  petty  persecution  into  a  temper  fit  for 
desperate  enterprise.  The  great  mass  of  the  population  ab- 
horred Popery  and  adored  Monmouth.  He  was  no  stranger  to 
them  His  progress  through  Somersetshire  and  Devonshire  in 
the  summer  of  1680  was  still  fresh  in  the  memory  of  all  men. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  51? 

He  was  on  that  occasion  sumptuously  entertained  by  Thoma? 
Thynne  ,at  Longleat  Hall,  then,  and  perhaps  still,  the  most 
magnificent  country  house  in  England.  From  Longleat  to 
Exeter  the  hedges  were  lined  with  shouting  spectators.  The 
roads  were  strewn  with  boughs  and  flowers.  The  multitude, 
in  their  eagerness  to  see  and  touch  their  favoui'ite,  broke  down 
the  palings  of  parks,  and  besieged  the  mansions  where  he  was 
feasted.  When  he  reached  Chard  his  escort  consisted  of  five 
thousand  horsemen.  At  Exete.r  all  Devonshire  had  been  gath- 
ered together  to  welcome  him.  One  striking  part  of  the  show 
was  a  company  of  nine  hundred  young  men  who,  clad  in  a  white 
uniform,  marched  before  him  into  the  city.*  The  turn  of  for- 
tune which  had  alienated  the  gentry  from  his  cause  had  produced 
no  effect  on  the  common  people.  To  them  he  was  still  the 
good  Duke,  the  Protestant  Duke,  the  rightful  heir  whom  a  vile 
conspiracy  kept  out  of  his  own.  They  came  to  his  standard  in 
crowds.  All  the  clerks  whom  he  could  employ  were  too  few 
to  take  down  the  names  of  the  recruits.  Before  he  had  been 
twenty-four  hours  on  English  ground  he  was  at  the  head  of 
fifteen  hundred  men.  Dare  arrived  from  Taunton  with  forty 
horsemen  of  no  very  martial  appearance,  and  brought  encourag- 
ing intelligence  as  to  the  state  of  public  feeling  in  Somer 
setshire.     As  yet  all  seemed  to  ])i-omise  well.t 

But  a  force  was  collecting  ;it  Bridport  to  oppose  the  insur- 
gents. On  the  thirteenth  of  June  the  red  regiment  of  Dorset- 
shire militia  came  pouring  into  that  town.  The  Somersetshire, 
or  yellow  regiment,  of  which  Sir  William  Portman,  a  Tory 
gentleman  of  great  note,  was  Colonel,  was  expected  to  arrive  on 
the  following  day-t  The  Duke  determined  to  strike  an  imme- 
diate blow.  A  detachment  of  his  troops  v/as  preparing  to  march 
to  Bridport  when  a  disastrous  event  threw  the  whole  camp  into 
confusion. 

Fletcher  of   Saltoun  had  been   appointed  to   command  the 

*  Historical  Account  of  the  Life  and  luagnanimous  Actions  of  the  most  illus- 
trious Protestant  Prince  James,  Duke  of  r»Ionmoutli,  1G83. 

t  "Watle's  Confession,  Hard\vicl;e  Papers  ;  Axo  Papers  ;  Havl.  MS.  6845. 
i  Harl.  MS.  C815. 


518  HISTORY    OF    ENGI,AND. 

cavalry  under  Grey.  Fletcher  was  ill  mounted  ;  and  indeed 
there  were  few  chargers  in  the  camp  which  had  not  been  taken 
from  the  plough.  When  he  was  ordered  to  Bridport,  he 
thought  that  the'  exigency  of  the  case  warranted  him  in  bor- 
rowing, without  asking  permission,  a  fine  horse  belonging  to 
Dare.  Dare  resented  this  liberty,  and  assailed  F'letcher  with 
gross  abuse.  Fletcher  kept  his  temper  better  than  any  one 
who  knew  him  expected.  At  last  Dare,  presuming  on  the  pa- 
tience with  which  his  insolence  had  been  endured,  ventured  to 
shake  a  switch  at  the  high  born  and  high  spirited  Scot. 
Fletcher's  blood  boiled.  He  drew  a  pistol  and  shot  Dare  dead. 
Such  sudden  and  violent  revenge  would  not  have  been  thought 
strange  in  Scotland,  where  the  law  had  always  been  weak, 
where  he  who  did  not  right  himself  by  the  strong  hand  was  not 
likely  to  be  righted  at  all,  and  where,  consequently,  human  life 
was  held  almost  as  cheap  as  in  the  worst  governed  provinces 
of  Italy.  But  the  people  of  the  southern  part  of  the  island 
were  not  accustomed  to  see  deadly  weapons  used  and  blood 
spilled  on  account  of  a  rude  word  or  gesture,  except  in  duel 
between  gentlemen  with  equal  arms.  There  was  a  general  cry 
for  vengeance  on  the  foreigner  who  had  murdered  an  English- 
man. Monmouth  could  not  resist  the  clamour.  Fletcher,  who, 
when  his  first  burst  of  rage  had  spent  itself,  was  overwhelmed 
with  remorse  and  sorrow,  took  refuge  on  boai-d  of  the  Helder- 
enbergh,  escaped  to  the  Continent,  and  repaired  to  Hungary, 
where  he  fought  bravely  against  the  common  enemy  of  Christ- 
endom.* 

Situated  as  the  insurgents  were,  the  loss  of  a  nian  of  parts 
and  energy  was  not  easily  to  be  repaired.  Early  on  the  morn- 
ing of  the  following  day,  the  fourteenth  of  .June,  Grey,  accom- 
panied by  Wade,  marched  with  about  five  hundred  men  to 
attack  Bridport.  A  confused  and  indecisive  action  took  place, 
such  as  was  to  be  expected  when  two  bands  of  ploughmen, 
officered  by  country  gentlemen  and  barristers,  were  opposed  to 
each  other.     For  a  time  Monmouth's  men  drove  the  militia  be- 

*  Buyse'8  evidence  in  the  Collection  of  State  Trials  ;  Burnet,  i.  642  ;  Fergu- 
son's MS.  quoted  by  Eachard. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  510 

fore  them.  Then  the  militia  made  a  stand,  and  Monmouth's 
men  retreated  in  some  confusion.  Grey  and  his  cavalry  never 
stopped  till  they  were  safe  at  Lyme  again  :  but  Wade  rallied 
tlie  infantry  and  brought  them  off  in  good  order.* 

There  was  a  violent  outcry  against  Grey  ;  and  some  of  the 
adventurers  pressed  Monmouth  to  take  a  severe  course.  Mon- 
mouth, however,  would  not  listen  to  this  advice.  His  lenity  has 
been  attributed  by  some  writers  to  his  good  nature,  which  un- 
doubtedly often  amounted  to  weakness.  Others  have  supposed 
that  he  was  unwilling  to  deal  liarshly  with  the  only  peer 
who  served  in  his  army.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  the 
Duke,  who,  though  not  a  general  of  the  highest  order,  under- 
stood war  very  much  better  than  the  preachers  and  lawyers  who 
were  always  obtruding  their  advice  on  him,  made  allowances 
which  people  altogether  inexpert  in  military  affairs  never 
thought  of  making.  In  justice  to  a  man  who  has  had  few  de- 
fenders, it  must  be  observed  that  the  task,  which,  throughout 
this  campaign,  was  assigned  to  Grey,  was  one  which,  if  he  had 
been  the  boldest  and  most  skilful  of  soldiers,  he  would  scarcely 
have  performed  in  such  a  manner  as  to  gain  credit.  He  was 
at  the  head  of  the  cavalry.  It  is  notorious  that  a  horse  soldier 
requires  a  longer  training  than  a  foot  soldier,  and  that  the  war 
horse  requires  a  longer  training  than  his  rider.  Something  may 
be  done  with  a  raw  infantry  which  has  enthusiasm  and  animal 
courage  :  but  nothing  can  be  more  helpless  than  a  raw  cavalry, 
consisting  of  yeomen  and  tradesmen  mounted  on  cart  horses 
and  post  horses  ;  and  such  was  the  cavalry  which  Grey  com- 
manded. The  wonder  is,  not  that  his  men  did  not  stand  fire 
with  resolution,  not  that  they  did  not  use  their  weapons  with 
vigour,  but  that  they  were  able  to  keep  their  seats. 

Still  recruits  came  in  by  hundreds.  Arming  and  drilling 
went  on  all  day.  Meantime  the  news  of  the  insurrection  had 
spread  fast  and  wide.  On  the  evening  on  which  the  Duke 
landed,  Gregory  Alford,  Mayor  of  Lyme,  a  zealous  Tory,  and  a 
bitter  persecutor  of  Nonconformists,  sent  off  his  servants  to  give 
the  alarm  to  the  gentry   of  Somersetshire  and  Dorsetshire,  and 

*  London  Gazette,  June  18, 1685  ;  Wade's  Confession,  Hardwicke  Papers. 


520  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

himself  took  horse  foi'  the  West.  Late  at  night  he  stopped  at 
HonitoD,  uud  theuce  despatched  a  few  hurried  lines  to  London 
with  the  ill  tidings.*  He  then  puslied  on  to  Exeter,  where  he 
found  Christopher  Monk,  Duke  of  Albemarle.  This  noblemau, 
the  son  and  heir  of  George  Monk,  the  restorer  of  the  Stuarts, 
was  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Devonshire,  and  was  then  holding  a 
muster  of  militia.  Four  thousand  men  of  the  trainbands  were 
actually  assembled  under  his  command.  He  seems  to  have 
thought  that,  with  this  force,  he  should  be  able  at  once  to  crush 
the  rebellion.     He  therefore  marched  towards  Lyme. 

But  when,  on  the  afternoon  of  Monday  the  fifteenth  of  June, 
he  reached  Axminster,  he  found  the  insurgents  drawn  up  there 
to  encounter  him.  They  presented  a  resolute  front.  Four 
field  pieces  were  pointed  against  the  royal  troops.  The  thick 
hedges,  vidiich  on  each  side  overhung  the  narrow  lanes,  v/ere 
lined  with  musketeers.  Albemarle,  however  was  less  alarmed 
by  the  preparations  of  the  enemy  than  by  the  spirit  whicli  ap- 
peared in  his  own  ranks.  Such  was  Monmouth's  popularity 
among  the  common  people  of  Devonshire  that,  if  once  the 
trainbands  had  cauo-ht  si^ht  of  his  well  known  face  and  fii^ure, 
they  would  have  probably  gone  over  to  him  in  a  body. 

Albemarle,  therefore,  though  he  had  a  great  superiority  of 
force,  thought  it  advisable  to  retreat.  The  retreat  soon  became 
a  rout.  The  whole  country  was  strewn  with  the  arms  and  uni- 
forms whicli  the  fucritives  had  thrown  awav ;  and,  had  Mon- 
mouth  urged  the  pursuit  with  vigour,  he  would  probably  have 
taken  Exeter  without  a  blow.  But  he  was  satisfied  with  the 
advantage  which  he  had  gained,  and  thought  it  desirable  that  his 
recruits  should  be  better  trained  before  they  were  employed  in 
any  hazardous  service.  He  therefore  marched  towards  Taunton, 
where  he  arrived  on  the  eighteenth  of  June,  exactly  a  week 
after  his  landing. f 

The  Court  and  the  Parliament  had  been  greatly  moved  by 


*  Lords'  Journals,  June  13, 1685. 

t  Wade's  Confession  ;  Ferguson  MS.  ;  Axe  Papers,  HarL  MS.  6845  ;  Oldmixon, 
701,  702.  Oldmixon,  who  was  then  a  boy,  lived  very  near  the  scene  of  these 
events. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  521 

the  news  from  the  West.  At  five  in  the  morning  of  Saturday 
the  thirteenth  of  June,  the  King  had  received  the  letter  wliich 
the  Mayor  of  Lyme  had  despatched  from  Honiton.  The  Privv 
Council  was  instantly  called  together.  Orders  were  given  that 
the  strength  of  every  company  of  infantry  and  of  every  troop 
of  cavalry  should  be  increased.  Commissions  were  issued  for 
the  levying  of  new  regiments.  Alford's  communication  was 
laid  before  the  Lords;  and  its  substance  was  communicated 
to  the  Commons  by  a  message.  The  Commons  examined  the 
couriers  who  IukI  arrived  from  the  West,  and  instantly  ordered 
a  bill  to  be  brought  m  for  attani ting  Monmouth  of  high  treason. 
Addresses  were  voted  assuring  tlie  King  that  both  his  peers 
and  his  people  were  determihed  to  stand  by  him  with  life  and  for- 
tune against  all  his  enemies.  At  the  next  meeting  of  the  Houses 
tliey  ordered  the  Declaration  of  the  rebels  to  be  burned  by  the 
hangman,  and  passed  the  bill  of  attainder  through  all  its  stages. 
That  b-.!l  received  the  royal  assent  on  the  same  day;  and  a  re- 
ward of  five  thousand  pounds  was  promised  for  the  apprehension 
Oi  Monmouth.* 

The  fact  that  Monmouth  was  m  arms  against  the  government 
v/as  so  notorious  that  the  bill  of  attainder  became  a  law  with 
only  a  faint  show  of  opposition  from  one  or  two  peers,  and  has 
seldom  been  severely  censured  even  by  Whig  historians.  Yet, 
when  we  consider  how  important  it  is  that  legislative  and  judi- 
cial functions  should  be  kept  distinct,  how  important  it  is  that 
common  fame,  liowever  strong  and-  general,  should  not  be  re- 
ceived as  a  legal  proof  of  guilt,  how  important  it  is  to  main- 
tain the  rule  that  no  man  shall  be  condemned  to  death  without 
an  opportunity  of  defending  himself,  and  how  easily  and  speedily 
breaches  in  great  principles,  when  once  made,  are  widened,  we 
shall  probably  be  disposed  to  think  that  the  course  taken  by  the 
Parliament  was  open  to  some  objection.  Neither  House  had 
before  it  anything  which  even  so  corrupt  a  judge  as  Jeffreys 
could  have  directed  a  jurj'  to  consider  as  proof  of  Monmouth's 
crime.     The  messengers  examined  by  the  Commons  were  not  on 

*  London  Gazette,  June  IS,  168j  ;  Lords'  and  Conimous'  Jcurnals,  June  13  and 
15 ;  Dutch  Despatcli,  16-26, 


522  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

oath,  and  might  therefore  have  related  mere  fictions  without 
incurring  the  penalties  of  perjury.  The  Lords,  who  might  have 
administered  an  oath,  appeared  not  to  have  examined  any  wit- 
ness, and  to  have  had  no  evidence  before  them  except  the  letter 
of  the  ^Rlayor  of  Lyme,  which,  in  the '  eye  of  the  law,  was  no 
evidence  at  all.  Extreme  danger,  it  is  trvie,  justifies  extreme 
remedies.  But  the  Act  of  Attainder  was  a  remedy  which  could 
not  operate  till  all  danger  was  over,  and  wliich  would  become 
superfluous  at  the  very  moment  at  which  it  ceased  to  be  null. 
While  Monmouth  was  in  arms  it  was  impossible  f  o  execute  him. 
If  he  should  be  vanquished  and  taken,  there  would  be  no  hazard 
and  no  difficulty  in  trying  him.  It  was  afterwards  remembered 
as  a  curious  circumstance  that,  among  zealous  Tories  who  went 
up  with  the  bill  from  the  House  of  Commons  to  the  bar  of  the 
Lords,  was  Sir  John  Fenwick,  member  for  Northumberland. 
This  gentleman,  a  few  years  later,  h;;(l  occasion  to  reconsider 
the  w'lole  subject,  and  then  came  to  the  conclusion  that  acts  of 
attainder  are  altogether  unjustifiable.  * 

The  Parliament  gave  other  proofs  of  loyalty  in  this  hour  of 
peril.  The  Commons  authorised  the  King  to  raise  an  extraor- 
dinary sum  of  four  hundred  thousand  pounds  for  his  present 
necessities,  and,  that  he  might  have  no  difficulty  in  finding  the 
money,  proceeded  to  devise  new  imposts.  Tlie  scheme  of  tax- 
ing houses  lately  built  in  the  capital  was  revived  and  strenuous- 
ly supported  by  the  country  gentlemen.  It  was  resolved  not 
only  that  such  houses  should  be  taxed,  but  that  a  bill  should 
be  brought  in  prohibiting  the  laying  of  any  new  foundations 
within  the  bills  of  mortality.  The  resolution,  however,  was  not 
carried  into  effect.  Powerful  men  who  had  land  in  thesuburl  s. 
and  who  hoped  to  see  new  streets  and  squares  rise  on  their  es- 
tates, exerted  all  their  influence  against  the  project.  It  was 
found  that  to  adjust  the  details  would  be  a  work  of  time  ;  and 
the  King's  wants  were  so  pressing  that  he  thought  it  necessary 
to  quicken  the  movements  of  the  House  by  a  gentle  exhortation 


*  Oldinixon  is  wrong  in  naying  that  Fenwick  carried  up  tliebill.  It  was  carried 
np,  as  appears  from  tiie  Journals,  by  Loid  Ancram.  See  Delamere's  Observa- 
Uons  ou  the  Attainder  of  the  Late  Duke  of  Monmouth. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  525 

to  speed.  The  plan  of  taxmg  buildings  was  therefore  relin- 
quished ;  and  new  duties  were  imposed  for  a  term  of  five  years 
on  foreign  silks,  linens,  and  spirits.* 

•  The  Toriea  of  the  Lower  House  proceeded  to  introduce 
what  they  called  a  bill  for  the  preservation  of  the  King's  per- 
son and  government.  They  proposed  that  it  should  be  high 
treason  to  say  that  Monmouth  was  legitimate,  to  utter  any 
words  tending  to  bring  the  person  or  government  of  the  sover 
eign  into  hatred  or  contempt,  or  to  make  any  motion  in  Parlia- 
ment for  changing  the  order  of  succession.  Some  of  tlicse 
provisions  excited  general  disgust  and  alarm.  The  Whigs,  few 
and  weak  as  they  were,  attempted  to  rally,  and  found  them- 
selves reinforced  by  a  considerable  number  of  moderate  and 
sensible  Cavaliers.  Words,  it  was  said,  may  easily  be  misun- 
derstood by  a  dull  man.  They  may  be  easily  misconstrued  by 
a  knave.  What  was  spoken  metaphorically  may  be  apprehended 
literally.  What  was  spoken  ludicrously  may  be  apprehended 
seriously.  A  particle,  a  tense,  a  mood,  an  emphasis,  may 
make  the  whole  difference  between  guilt  and  innocence.  Tlie 
Saviour  of  mankind  himself,  in  whose  blameless  life  malice 
could  find  no  acts  to  impeach,  had  been  called  in  question 
for  words  spoken.  False  witnesses  had  suppressed  a  syllable 
ivhich  would  have  made  it  clear  that  those  words  were  figurative, 
and  had  thus  furnished  the  Sanhedrim  with  a  pretext  under  v/liieh 
the  foule&t  of  all  judicial  murders  had  been  perpetrated.  With 
such  an  example  on  record,  who  could  affirm  that,  if  mere  talk 
were  made  a  substantive  treason,  the  most  loyal  subject  would 
be  safe  ?  These  arguments  produced  so  great  an  effect  that  in 
the  committee  amendments  were  introduced  which  greatly  miti- 
gated the  severity  of  the  bill.  But  the  clause  which  made  it 
high  treason  in  a  member  of  Parliament  to  propose  the  exclu- 
sion of  a  prince  of  the  blood  seems  to  have  raised  no  debate, 
and  was  retained.  That  clause  was  indeed  altogether  unimpor- 
tant, excent  .1.3  a  proof  of  the  ignorance  and  inexperience  of 
the  hotbeaced  Koyalists  wno  thronged  the  House  of  Commons, 
ilad  they  learned  the  first  rudiments  of  legislation,  they  would 

•  Commous'  JorrriLls  of  June  17,  18,  and  19, 1685  ;  Reresby's  Memoirs. 


524  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

have  known  that  the  enactment  to  which  they  attached  so  much 
value  would  be  superfluous  while  the  Parliament  was  disposed 
to  maintain  the  order  of  succession,  and  would  be  repealed  as 
soon  as  there  was  a  Parliament  bent  on  changing  the  order  of 
succession.* 

The  bill,  as  amended,  was  passed  and  carried  up  to  the 
Lords,  but  did  not  become  law.  The  King  had  obtained  from 
the  Parliament  all  the  pecuniary  assistance  that  he  could  e>xpect ; 
and  he  conceived  that,  while  rebellion  was  actually  rarjin"-,  the 
loyal  nobility  and  gentry  would  be  of  more  use  in  their  counties 
than  at  Westminster.  He  therefore  hurried  their  deliberations 
to  a  close,  and,  on  the  second  of  July,  dismissed  them.  On 
the  same  day  the  royal  assqnt  was  given  to  a  law  reviving  that 
censorshij)  of  the  pr'^b?  which  had  terminated  in  1G79.  This 
object  was  affected  by  a  few  words  at  the  end  of  a  miscellaneous 
statute  which  continued  several  expiring  acts.  The  courtiers 
did  not  think  that  tbey  had  gained  a  triumph.  The  Whigs  did  not 
utter  a  murmur.  Neither  in  the  Lords  nor  in  the  Commons 
was  tliere  any  division,  or  even,  as  far  as  can  now  l)e  learned, 
any  debate  on  a  question  which  would,  in  our  age,  convulse  the 
whole  frame  of  society.  In  truth,  the  change  was  slight  and 
almost  imperceptible  ;  for,  since  the  detection  of  the  Rye  House 
plot,  the  liberty  of  unlicensed  printing  had  existed  only  in  name. 
During  many  months  scarcely  one  Whig  pamphlet  had  been 
published  except  by  stealth  ;  and  by  stealth  such  pamphlets 
might  be  published  still. f 

The  Houses  then  rose.  They  were  not  prorogued,  but  only 
adjourned,  in  order  that,  when  they  should  reassemble,  they 
might  take  up  their  business  in  the  exact  state  in  wliich  they 
had  left  it.| 

Wliile  the  Parliament  was  devising  sharp  laws  against  Mon- 
mouth  and  his  partisans,  he  found  at  Taunton  a  reception  which 

*  Commons'  Journals,  June  10,  29,  1G85  ;  I^ord  Lonsdale's  Memoirs,  8,  9  ;  Bur- 
net, i.  639.  Tlie  bill,  as  amentled  by  the  committee,  will  be  found  in  Mr.  rox's 
historical  work.  Appendix  iii.  IE  Burnet's  account  be  correct,  the  offences 
whi.A,  by  the  amended  bill,  were  made  punishable  only  with  civil  incapacities, 
were,  by  the  original  bill,  made  capital. 

t  1  Jac.n.  C.7  ;  Lords'  Journals,  July  2,  1C85. 

X  Lords'  and  Commons'  Journals,  July  2, 1S85. 


JAMES    THK    SECOND.  525 

mignt  well  encourage  hira  to  hope  that  his  enterprise  would 
have  a  prosperous  issue.  Tiuuitou,  like  most  other  towns  in  the 
south  of  England,  was,  in  that  age,  more  important  than  -it  pres- 
ent. Those  towns  have  not  indeed  declnied.  On  the  contra- 
ry, they  are,  with  very  few  exceptions,  larger  and  richer,  better 
built  and  better  peopled,  than  in  the  seventeenth  century.  But, 
though  they  have  positively  advanced,  they  have  relatively  gone 
back.  They  have  been  far  outstripped  in  wealth  and  popula- 
tion by  the  great  manufacturing  and  commercial  cities  of  the 
north,  cities  which,  ia  the  time  of  the  Stuarts,  were  but  begin- 
ning to  be  known  as  seats  of  industry.  When  Monmouth 
marched  into  Taunton  it  was  an  eminently  prosperous  place; 
Its  markets  were  plentifully  supplied.  It  was  a  celebrated  seat 
of  the  woollen  manufacture.  The  people  boasted  that  they 
lived  in  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey.  Nor  was  this  Ian* 
guage  held  only  by  partial  natives;  for  every  stranger  who 
climbed  the  graceful  tower  of  St.  Mary  Magdalene  owned  that 
he  saw  beneath  him  the  most  fertile  of  English  valleys.  It  was 
a  country  rich  with  orchards  and  green  pastures,  among  which 
were  scattered,  in  gay  abundance,  manor  houses,  cottages,  and 
villago  spires.  The  townsmen  had  long  leaned  towards  Pres- 
byterian divinity  and  Whig  politics.  In  the  g^'<3at  civil  war 
Taunton  had,  through  all  vicissitudes,  adhered  to  the  Parlia- 
ment, had  been  twice  closely  besieged  by  Goring,  and  had  been 
twice  defended  with  heroic  valour  by  Robert  Blake,  afterwards 
the  renowned  Admiral  of  the  Commonwealth.  Wliole  streets 
had  b'jen  burned  down  by  the  mortars  and  gi-enades  of  the  Cav- 
aliers. -Food  had  been  so  scai'ce  that  the  I'osolute  governor  had 
announced  his  intention  of  putting  the  garrison  on  rations  of 
horse  flesh.  But  the  spirit  of  the  town  had  never  been  subdued 
either  by  fire  or  by  hunger.* 

The  Restoration  had  produced  no  efiect  on  the  temper  of 
the  Taunton  men.  They  had  still  continued  to  celebrate  the 
anniversary  of  the  happy  day  on  which  the  siege  laid  to  their 
town  by  the  royal  army  had  been  raised  ;  and  their  stubborn 
attachment  to  the  old  cause  had  excited  so  much  fear  and  re- 
*  Savage's  ettition  ^<  Toulmiu's  History  of  Tauiiton. 


526  HISTORY    OF    ENGLA.ND. 

sentment  at  Whitehall  that,  by  a  royal  order,  their  moat  had 
beeu  filled  up,  and  their  wall  demolished  to  the  fouudation.* 
The  puritanical  spirit  had  beeu  kept  up  to  the  height  among 
them  by  the  precepts  and  example  of  one  of  the  most  celebrated 
of  the  dissenting  clergy,  Joseph  Alleine.  Alleine  was  the  au- 
thor of  a  tract,  entitled,  An  Alarm  to  the  Unconverted,  which 
is  still  popular  both  in  England  and  in  America.  From  the 
gaol  to  which  he  was  consigned  by  the  victorious  Cavaliers,  lie 
addressed  to  his  loving  friends  at  Taunton  many  epistles  breath- 
ing the  spirit  of  a  truly  heroic  piety.  His  frame  soon  sank  un- 
der the  effects  of  study,  toil,  and  persecution  ;  but  his  memory 
was  long  cherished  with  exceeding  love  and  reverence  by  those 
whom  he  had  exhorted  and  catechised. f 

The  children  of  the  men  who,  forty  years  before,  had  manned 
the  ramparts  of  Taunton  against  the  Royalists,  now  welcomed 
Monmouth  with  transports  of  joy  and  affection.  Every  door 
and  window  was  adorned  with  wreaths  of  flowers.  No  man 
appeared  in  the  streets  without  wearing  in  his  hat  a  green  bough, 
"the  badge  of  the  popular  cause.  Damsels  of  the  best  families 
in  the  town  wove  colours  for  the  insurgents.  One  flag  in  par- 
ticular was  embroidered  gorgeously  with  emblems  of  royal  dig- 
nity, and  was  offered  to  Monmouth  by  a  train  of  young  gii'ls. 
He  received  the  gift  with  the  winning  courtesy  which  distin- 
guished him.  The  lady  who  headed  the  procession  presented 
him  also  with  a  small  Bible  of  great  price.  He  took  it  with  a 
show  of  reverence.  ''  I  come,"  he  said,  "  to  defend  the  truths 
contained  in  this  book,  and  to  seal  them,  if  it  must  be  so,  with 
my  blood.'"  t 

But,  while  Monmouth  enjoyed  the  applause  of  the  multitude, 
he  could  not  but  perceive,  with  concern  and  apprehension,  that 
the  higher  classes  were,  with  scarcely  an  exception,  hostile 
to  his  undertaking,  and  that  no  '  rising  had  taken  place  except 
in  the  counties  where  he  had  himself  appeared.  He  had 
been   assured  by   agents,  who   professed  to  have  derived    their 

*  Sprat's  true  Account  ;  Toulmin's  History  of  Taunton. 

t  Life  and  Death  of  Josenli  Alleine,  1372  ;  Nonconformists'  Memorial. 

t  Harl.  MS.  T006  ;  Oldmixon,  702  :  Eachard,  iii.  763. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  527 

information  from  Wildmun,  that  the  whole  Wiiig  aristocracy- 
was  eager  to  take  arms.  Nevertiieless  more  tlian  a  week  had 
now  elapsed  since  the  bhie  standard  had  been  set  up  at  Lyme. 
Day  labourers,  small  farmers,  shopkeepers,  apprentices,  dissent- 
ing preachers,  had  flocked  to  the  rebel  camp  :  but  not  a  single 
peer,  baronet,  or  knight,  not  a  sh)gle  member  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  scarcely  any  esquire  of  sufficient  note  to  have 
ever  been  in  the  commission  of  the  peace,  liad  joined  the  invaders. 
Ferguson,  who,  ever  since  the  death  of  Charles,  had  been 
Monmouth's  evil  angel,  had  a  suggestion  ready.  The  Duke 
had  put  himself  into  a  false  position  by  declining  the  royal  title. 
Had  he  declared  himself  sovereign  of  England,  his  cause  would 
have  worn  a  show  of  legality.  At  present  it  was  impossible  to 
reconcile  his  Declaration  with  the  principles  of  the  constitution. 
It  was  clear  that  either  Monmouth  or  his  uncle  was  rightful 
King.  Monmouth  did  not  venluie  to  pronounce  himself  the 
rightful  King,  and  yet  denied  that  his  uncle  was  so.  Those 
who  fought  for  -James  fought  for  the  ouh  person  who  ventured 
to  claim  the  throne,  and  were  therefore  clearly  in  thei)'  duty, 
according  to  the  laws  of  the  realm.  Those  who  fought  for 
Monmouth  fought  for  some  unknown  polity,  which  was  to  be 
set  up  by  a  convention  not  yet  in  existence.  None  could 
wonder  that  men  of  high  raid<  and  ample  fortune  stood  aloof 
from  an  enter|)rise  which  threatened  with  destruction  that 
system  in  the  permanence  of  which  they  were  deeply  interested. 
If  the  Duke  would  assert  his  legitimacy  and  assume  the  crown, 
he  would  at  once  remove  this  ol)jection.  The  quesiion  would 
cease  to  be  a  cpiestion  l)etween  the  old  constitution  and  a  new 
constitution.  It  would  be  merely  a  question  of  hereditary  right 
between  two  prhices. 

On  such  grounds  as  these  Ferguson,  almost  immediately 
after  the  landing,  had  earnestly  pressed  the  Duke  to  proclaim 
himself  King  ;  and  Grey  had  seconded  Ferguson.  Monmouth 
had  been  very  willing  to  take  this  advice  ;  but  Wade  and  other 
republicans  had  been  refractory  ;  and  their  chief,  with  his  usual 
pliability,  had  yielded  to  their  arguments.  At  Taunton  the 
subject  was  revived.     Monmouth  talked  in  private    with    the 


528  HISTOKY    OF    KNGLAND. 

dissentients,  assured  them  that  he  s;iw  no  other  way  of  obtaining 
^he  support  of  any  portion  of  Vae  aristocracy,  and  succeeded  in 
oxtortinu  their  rehictant  consent.  On  the  morninij  of  the 
wentieth  of  Juno  he  was  proclaimed  in  the  market  phic<;  of 
Taunton.  His  followers  repeated  liis  new  title  with  affectionate 
delight.  But,  as  some  confusion  might  have  arisen  if  he  had 
been  called  King  James  the  Second,  they  commonly  used  the 
strange  appellation  of  King  Monmouth  ;  and  by  this  name  their 
unliappy  favorite  was  often  mentioned  in  the  western  counties, 
within  the  memory  of  persons  still  living.* 

Within  twenty-four  hours  after  he  had  assumed  the  regal 
title,  lie  put  forth  several  proclamations  headed  with  his  sign 
niauuel.  -By  one  of  these  he  set  a  price  on  the  head  of  his  rival. 
Another  declared  the  Parliament  then  sittinor  at  Westminster  an 
unlawful  assemblage,  and  commanded  the  members  to  disperse. 
A  third  forbade  the  people  to"  pay  taxes  to  the  usurper.  A 
fourth  pi'onounced  Albei'marle  a  traitor.t 

Albermarle  transmitted  these  proclamations  to  London 
merely  as  specimens  of  folly  and  impertinence.  They  pro- 
duced no  effect,  except  wonder  and  contempt ;  nor  had  Mon- 
mouth any  reason  to  think  that  the  assumption  of  royalty  had 
improved  his  position.  Only  a  week  liad  elapsed  since  he  had 
solemnly  bound  himself  not  to  take  the  crown  till  a  free  Par- 
liament should  have  acknowledged  his  rights.  By  breaking 
that  engagment  he  had  incurred  the  imputation  of  levity,  if 
not  of  perfidy.  The  class  which  he  had  hoped  to  concdiate 
still  stood  aloof.  The  reasons  which  prevented  the  great  Whig 
lords  and  gentlemen  from  recognizing  him  as  their  King  were 
at  least  as  strong  as  those  wdiich  had  prevented  them  from 
rallying  around  him  as  their  Captain  General.  They  disliked 
indeed  the  person,  the  religion,  and  the  politics  of  James.     Buf 

♦  Wade's  ronrfRsicti ;  Goodeiiough's  Confession,  Ilarl.  MS.  1152;  Olcimixon, 
702.  Ferguson's  denial  io  quite  undeserving  of  credit.  A  copy  of  the  procla. 
matiou  is  tu  tlio  Har.    MS  700G . 

y  Copies  ol  thf  last  three  proclamations  arc  in  the  British  museum  ;  Harl. 
MS.  7006.    'ITie  first  I  have  never  seen  ;  but  it  is  mentioned  by  "Wade 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  529 

fMmes  was  no  longer  young.  His  eldest  daughter  was  justly 
popular.  She  was  attached  to  the  reformed  faith.  She  was 
married  to  a  prince  who  was  the  hereditary  chief  of  the  Pro- 
testants of  the  Continent,  to  a  prince  who  had  been  bred 
in  a  republic,  and  whose  sentiments  were  supposed  to 
be  such  as  became  a  constitutional  King.  Was  it  wise 
to  incur  the  horrors  of  civil  war,  for  the  mere  chance 
of  being  able  to  effect  immediately  what  nature  would, 
without  bloodshed,  without  any  violation  of  law,  effect,  in  all 
probability,  before  many  years  should  have  expired  ?  Perhaps 
there  might  be  reasons  for  pulling  down  James.  But  what  rea- 
son could  be  given  for  setting  up  Monmouth  ?  To  exclude  a 
prince  fiom  the  throne  on  account  of  unfitness  was  a  course 
agreeable  to  Whig  principles.  But  on  no  principle  could  it  be 
proper  to  exclude  rightful  heirs,  who  were  admitted  to  be,  not 
only  blameless,  but  eminently  qualified  for  the  highest  public 
trust.  That  Monmouth  was  legitimate,  nay,  that  he  thought 
himself  legitimate,  intelligent  men  could  not  believe.  He  was 
therefore  not  merely  an  usurper,  but  an  usurper  of  the  worst 
sort,  an  impostor.  If  he  made  out  any  semblance  of  a  case,  he 
could  do  so  only  by  means  of  forgery  and  perjury.  All  honest 
and  sensible  persons  were  unwilling  to  see  a  fraud  which,  if 
practised  to  obtain  an  estate,  would  have  been  punished  with 
the  scourge  and  the  pillory,  rewarded  with  the  English  crown. 
To  the  old  nobility  of  the  realm  it  seemed  insupportable  that  the 
bastard  of  Lucy  Walters  should  be  set  up  high  above  the  law- 
ful descendants  of  the  Fitzalans  and  De  Veres.  Those  who 
were  capable  of  looking  forward  must  have  seen  that,  if  Mon- 
mouth should  succeed  in  overpowering  the  existing  government, 
there  would  still  remain  a  war  between  him  and  the  House  of 
Orange,  a  war  which  might  last  longer  and  produce  more  misery 
than  the  war  of  the  Roses,  a  war  which  might  probably  break 
up  the  Protestants  of  Europe  into  hostile  parties,  might  arm 
England  and  Holland  against  each  other,  and  might  make  both 
those  countries  an  easy  prey  to  France.  The  opinion,  there- 
fore, of  almost  all  the  leading  Whigs  seems  to  have  been  that 
Monmouth's  enterprise  could  not  fail  to  end  in  some  great  dis- 

a4 


530  HISTOIIT    OF    ENGLAND. 

aster  to  the  nation,  but  that,  on  the  whole,  his  defeat  would  be 
a  less  disaster  than  his  victory. 

It  was  not  only  by  the  inaction  of  the  "Whig  aristocracy  that 
the  invaders  were  disappointed.  The  wealth  and  power  of 
London  had  sufficed  in  the  preceding  generation,  and  might 
again  suffice,  to  turn  the  scale  in  a  civil  conflict.  The  London- 
ers had  formerly  given  many  proofs  of  their  hatred  of  Popery 
and  of  eheir  affection  for  the  Protestant  Duke.  He  had  too 
readily  believed  that,  as  soon  as  he  landed,  there  would  be  a 
rising  in  the  capital.  But,  though  advices  came  down  to  him 
that  many  thousands  of  the  citizens  had  been  enrolled  as  vol- 
unteers for  the  good  cause,  nothing  was  done.  The  plain  truth 
v/as  that  the  agitators  who  had  urged  him  to  invade  England, 
who  had  promised  to  rise  on  the  first  signal,  and  who  had  })er« 
haps  imagined,  while  the  danger  was  remote,  that  they  should 
have  the  courage  to  keep  their  promise,  lost  heart  when  the 
critical  time  dn  w  near.  Wildmau's  fright  was  such  that  ha 
seemed  to  have  lost  his  understanding.  The  craven  Danvers 
at  first  excused  his  inaction  by  saying  that  he  would  not  take 
np  arms  till  Monmouth  was  proclaimed  King,  and.  when  Mon- 
mouth had  />een  proclaimed  King,  turned  round  and  declared 
that  good  republicans  were  absolved  from  all  engagements  to  a 
leader  who  had  so  shamefully  broken  faith.  In  every  age  the 
vilest  specimens  of  human  nature  are  to  be  found  among  dem- 
agogues.* 

On  the  day  following  that  on  which  Monmouth  had  assumed 
the  regal  title  he  marched  from  Taunton  to  Bridgewater.  His 
own  spirits,  it  was  remarked,  were  not  high  The  acclamations, 
of  the  devoted  thousands  vi'ho  surrounded  him  wherever  he 
turned  could  not  dispel  the  gloom  which  sate  on  his  brow. 
Those  who  had  seen  him  dmi'ig  his  progress  through  Some:-- 
setshire  five  years  before  could  not  now  observe  without  pity 
the  traces  of  distress  and  anxiety  on  those  soft  and  pleasing 
features  which  had  won  so  many  hearts,  f 

Ferguson  was  in  a  very  different  temper.     With  this  man's 

*  Grey's  Narrative  ;  Ferccnson's  >T'=^.,  Fnrhard,  iii.  754. 
t  Persecution  Exposed,  by  John  Whiting. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  531 

knavery  was  strangely  mingled  an  eccentric  vanity  which  re- 
sembled madness.  The  thought  that  he  had  raised  a  rebellion 
and  bestowed  a  crown  had  turned  his  head.  He  swaggered 
about,  brandishing  his  naked  sword,  and  crying  to  the  crowd  of 
spectators  who  had  assembled  to  see  the  army  march  out  of 
Taunton,  "  Look  at  me !  You  have  heard  of  me.  I  am  Fer- 
guson, the  famous  Ferguson,  the  Ferguson  for  whose  liead  so 
many  hundred  pounds  have  been  offered."  And  this  man,  at 
once  unprincipled  and  brainsick,  had  in  his  keeping  the  under- 
standing and  the  conscience  of  the  unhappy  Monmouth.* 

Brido-ewater  was  one  of  the  few  towns  which  still  had  some 
Whig  magistrates.  The  Mayor  and  Aldermen  came  in  their 
robes  to  welcome  the  Duke,  walked  befoie  him  in  procession 
to  the  liigh  cross,  and  there  proclaimed  him  King.  His  troops 
found  excellent  quarters,  and  were  furnished  with  necessaries 
at  little  or  no  cost  by  the  people  of  the  town  and  neighbour- 
hood. He  took  up  his  residence  in  the  Castle,  a  building 
which  had  been  honoured  by  several  royal  visits.  In  the 
Castle  Field  his  army  was  encamped.  It  now  consisted  of 
about  six  thousand  men,  and  might  easily  have  been  increased 
to  double  the  number,  but  for  the  want  of  arms.  The  Duke 
had  brought  with  him  from  the  Continent  but  a  scanty  supply 
of  pikes  and  muskets.  Many  of  his  followers  had,  therefore, 
no  other  weapons  than  such  as  could  be ,  fashioned  out  of  the 
tools  which  they  had  used  in  husbandry  or  mining.  Of  these 
rude  implements  of  war  the  most  formidable  was  made  by  fast- 
ening the  blade  of  a  scythe  erect  on  a  strong  pole.f  The  tith- 
ing men  of  the  country  round  Taunton  and  Bridgewater  re- 
ceived orders  to  search  everywhere  for  scythes  and  to  bring  all 
that  could  be  found  to  the  camp.  It  was  impossible,  however, 
even  with  the  help  of  these  contrivances,  to  supply  the  demand  ; 
and  great  numbers  who  were  desirous  to  enlist  were  sent  awaj'.i 

The  foot  were  divided  into  six  regiments.  Many  of  the 
men  had  been  in  the  militia,  and  still   wore  their  uniforms,  red 

*Harl.  MS.  6845. 

t  One  of  these  weapons  may  still  be  seen  in  the  tower. 

t  Grey's  Narrative  ;  Paschall's  Narrative  in  the  Appendix  to  Heywood's  Vin- 
dication. 


532  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

and  yellow.  The  eavalry  vvere  about  a  thousand  in  number ; 
but  most  of  them  had  only  large  colts,  such  as  were  then  bred 
m  great  herds  on  the  marshes  of  Somersetshire  for  the  purpose 
of  supplying  London  with  coach  horses  and  cart  horses.  These 
animals  were  so  far  from  being  fit  for  any  military  purpose 
that  they  had  not  yet  learned  to  obey  the  bridle,  and  became 
ungovernable  as  soon  as  they  heard  a  gun  fired  or  a  drum  beat- 
en. A  small  body  guard  of  forty  young  men,  well  armed,  and 
mounted  at  their  own  charge,  attended  Moumoutli.  The  peo- 
})le  of  Bridgewaler,  who  were  enriched  by  a  thriving  coast  trade, 
furnished  him  witli  a  small  sum  of  money.* 

All  this  time  the  forces  of  the  government  were  fast  as- 
sembling. On  the  west  of  the  rebel  army,  Albemarle  still  kept 
together  a  large  body  of  Devonshire  militia.  On  the  east,  the 
trainbands  of  Wiltshire  had  mustered  under  the  command  of 
Thomas  Herbert,  Earl  of  Pembroke.  On  the  north  east,  Henry 
Somerset,  Duke  of  Beaufort,  was  in  arms.  The  power  of 
Beaufort  bore  some  faint  resemblance  to  that  of  the  great 
barons  of  the  fifteenth  century.  He  was  President  of  Wales 
and  Lord  Lieutenant  of  four  English  counties.  His  official 
tours  through  the  extensive  region  in  which  he  represented  the 
majesty  of  the  throne  were  scarcely  inferior  in  pomp  to  royal 
progresses.  His  household  at  Badminton  was  regulated  after 
the  fashion  of  an  earlier  generation.  The  land  to  a  great  extent 
round  his  pleasure  grounds  was  in  his  own  hands  ;  and  the 
labourers  who  cultivated  it  formed  part  of  his  family.  Nine 
tables  were  every  day  spread  under  his  roof  for  two  hundred 
persons.  A  crowd  of  gentlemen  and  pages  were  under  the 
orders  of  the  steward.  A  whole  troop  of  cavalry  obeyed  the 
master  of  the  horse.  The  fame  of  the  kitchen,  the  cellar,  the 
kennel,  and  the  stables  was  spread  over  all  England.  The 
gentry,  many  miles  round,  were  proud  of  tlie  magnificence  of 
their  great  neighbour,  and  were  at  the  same  time  charmed  by  his 
affability  and  good  nature.  He  was  a  zealous  Cavalier  of  the 
old  school.  At  this  crisis,  therefore,  he  used  his  whole  influ- 
ence   and    authority    in    support    of   the  crown,    and    occupied 

*  Oldmixoi),  702. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  5^3 

Bristol  with  the  trainbands  of  Gloucestershire,  who  seem  to 
have  heeu  better  disciphued  than  most  other  troops  of  that 
description.* 

In  the  counties  more  remote  from  Somersetshire  the  sup- 
porters of  tlie  throne  were  on  the  alert.  The  militia  of  Sussex 
bei>an  to  march  westward,  under  the  command  of  Richard, 
Lord  Lumlej^  who,  though  he  had  lately  been  converted  from 
the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  was  still  firm  in  his  allegiance 
to  a  Roman  Catholic  King.  James  Bertie,  Earl  of  Abingdon, 
called  out  the  arra}^  of  Oxfordshire.  John  Fell,  Bishop  of 
Oxford,  who  was  also  Dean  of  Christchurch,  summoned  the 
undergraduates  of  his  University  to  take  arms  for  the  crown. 
The  P-ownsmen  crowded  to  give  in  their  names.  Christchurch 
alone  furnished  near  a  hundred  pikemen  and  musketeers. 
Young  noblemen  and  gentlemen  commoners  acted  as  othcers  ; 
and  the  eldest  son  of  tlie  Lord  Lieutenant  was  Colonel. f 

But  it  was  chiefly  on  the  regular  troops  that  the  King  relied. 
Churchill  had  been  sen  ;  westward  with  the  Blues;  and  Fever- 
sham  was  following  with  all  the  forces  that  could  be  spared  from 
the  neiirhbourhood  of  London.  A  courier  had  started  for  Holland 
with  a  letter  directing  Skeltou  instantly  to  request  that  Li)e 
fhreo  Enirlish  regiments  in  the  Dutch  service  mi^dit  be  sent  to 
the  Thames.  When  the  request  v/as  made,  the  party  hostile  to 
the  House  of  Orange,  headed  by  the  deputies  of  Amsterdam, 
again  tried  to  cause  delay.  But  the  energy  of  William,  who 
had  almost  as  much  at  stake  as  James,  and  who  saw  Monmouth's 
progress  with  serious  uneasiness,  bore  down  opposition  ;  and  in 
a  few  days  the  troops  sailed.!  Tlie  three  Scotch  regiments 
were  already  in  England.  They  had  arrived  at  Gravesend  in 
excellent  condition,  and  James  had  reviewed  them  on  Black- 
heath.  He  repeatedly  declared  to  the  Dutch  Ambassador  that 
he  had  never  in  his  life  seen  finer  or  better  disciplined  soldiers, 

*  North's  Life  of  Guildford,  132.  Accounts  of  Beaufort's  progress  tliiough 
Wales  and  tho  neiglibouring  counties  are  in  tlie  London  Gazettes  of  July  16S4. 
Letter  of  Beaufort  to  Clarendon,  .June  19,  1CS5. 

t  Bishop  Fell  to  Clarendon,  June  20  ;  Abingdon  to  Cla-reudon,  June  20,  25,  20, 
1G85  ;  Lansdowne  MS.  Sid. 

t  Ava\ix,  July  5-15,  6-16,  li;i>5. 


5S4  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

and  expressed  the  warmest  gratitude  to  tlie  Prince  of  Orange 
and  the  States  for  so  valuable  and  seasonable  a  reinforcement. 
This  satisfaction,  however,  was  not  unmixed.  Excellently  as 
the  men  went  through  their  drill,  they  were  not  untainted  with 
Dutch  politics  and  Dutch  divinity.  One  of  them  was  shot  and 
another  flociied  for  drinkinof  the  Duke  of  Monmouth's  health. 
It  was  therefore  not  thought  advisable  to  place  them  in  the  post 
of  danger.  They  were  kept  in  the  neighbourhood  of  London 
till  the  end  of  the  campaign.  But  their  arrival  enabled  the 
King  to  send  to  the  West  some  infantiy  which  would  otherwise 
have  been  wanted  in  the  capital.* 

While  the  government  was  thus  preparing  for  a  conflict  witli 
the  rebels  in  the  field,  precautions  of  a  different  kind  were  not 
neglected.  In  London  alone  two  hundred  of  those  persons  who 
were  thought  most  likely  to  be  at  the  head  of  a  Whig  move- 
ment were  arrested.  Among  the  prisoners  were  some  merchants 
of  great  note.  Every  man  who  was  obnoxious  to  the  Court 
went  in  fear.  A  general  gloom  overhung  the  capital.  Business 
languished  on  the  Exchange  ;  and  the  theatres  were  so  generally 
deserted  that  a  new  opera,  written  by  Dryden,  and  set  off  by 
decorations  of  unprecedented  magnificence,  was  withdrawn,  be- 
cause the  receipts  would  not  cover  the  expenses  of  the  perform- 
ance.f  The  magistrates  and  clergy  were  everywhere  ^active. 
The  Dissenters  were  every  where  closely  observed.  In  Cheshire 
and  Shropshire  a  fierce  persecution  raged ;  in  Northamptonshire 
arrests  were  numerous  ;  and  the  gaoi  of  Oxford  was  crowded 
with  prisoners.  No  Puritan  divine,  however  moderate  his  opin- 
ions, however  guarded  his  conduct,  could  feel  any  confidence 
that  he  should  not  be  torn  from  his  family  and  flung  into  a  dun- 
geon.! 

Meanwhile  Monmouth  advanced  from  Bridgewater  harassed 
through  the  whole  march  by  Churchill,  who  appears  to  have 
done  all  that,  with  a  handful  of  men,  it  was  possible  for  a  brave 

*  Van  Citters,  J^'l^il!!:  July  3-13,  21-31,  1685;  Avaux  Neg.  July  5-15  ;  London 

July  10, 

Gazette,  July  6. 

■^  o-j-rUiou,  July  6-16,  1685  ;  Scott's  preface  to  Albion  ana  AiCaiAus. 

+  .cr  viiiuaoii  to  Clarencion,  June  29,  IGUo  ;  Life  of  Philip  Henry,  by  Bates. 


ja:\ii:s  the  second.  535 

and  skilful  officer  to  effect.  The  rebel  army,  much  annoyed, 
both  by  the  enemy  iind  by  a  heavy  fall  of  rain,  halted  in  the 
evening  of  the  twenty-second  of  June  at  Glastonbury.  The 
houses  of  tlie  little  town  did  not  afford  shelter  for  so  large  a 
force.  Some  of  the  troops  were  therefore  quartered  in  the 
{hurches,  and  others  lighted  their  fires  among  the  venerable 
'uins  of  the  Abbey,  once  the  wealthiest  religious  house  in  our 
island.  From  Glastonbury  the  Duke  marched  to  Wells,  and 
from  Wells  to  Shepton  Mallet.* 

Hitherto  he  seems  to  have  wandered  from  place  to  place 
witli  no  other  object  than  that  of  collecting  troops.  It  was  now 
necessary  for  him  to  form  some  plan  of  military  operations. 
His  first  scheme  was  to  seize  Bristol.  Many  of  the  chief  in- 
liabitants  of  that  important  place  were  Whiga.  One  of  the 
ramifications  of  the  Whig  plot  had  extended  thither.  The  gar- 
rison consisted  only  of  the  Gloucestershire  trainbands.  If  Beau- 
fort and  his  rustic  followers  could  be  overpowered  before  the 
regulai'- troops  arrived,  the  rebels  would  at  once  lind  themselves 
possessed  of  ample  pecuniary  resources  ;  the  credit  of  Mon- 
mouth's arras  would  be  raised  ;  ami  his  friends  tliroughouL  the 
kinsrdora  would  be  encouraired  to  declare  themselves.  Bristol 
had  fortifications  which,  on  the  north  of  the  Avon  towards 
Gloucestershire,  were  weak,  but  on  the  south  towards  Somerset- 
shire were  much  stronger.  It  was  therefore  determined  that  the 
attack  should  be  made  on  the  Gloucestershire  side.  But  for  this 
nurpose  it  vas  necessary  to  take  a  circuitous  route,  and  to  cross 
"he  Avon  at  Keynsham.  The  bridge  at  Keynsham  had  been 
partly  demolished  by  the  militia,  and  was  at  present  impassable. 
A  detachment  was  therefore  sent  forward  to  make  the  necessary 
repairs.  •  The  other  troops  followed  more  slowly,  and  on  the 
evening  of  the  twenty-fourth  of  June  halted  for  repose  at  Pens- 
ford.  At  Pcnsford  they  were  only  five  miles  from  the  Somer- 
setshire side  of  Bristol  ;  but  the  Gloucestershire  side,  which 
could  be  reached  only  by  going  round  through  Keynsham,  was 
distant  a  long  day's  march. f 

*  London  Gazette,  June  22,  and  June  25, 16S5  ;  Wade's  Oonfession  ;  Oldmixon, 
703  ;  Ilarl.  MS.  6S-15. 
t  Wad«'8  ConfeBsion. 


536 


HISTOKV    OF    ENGLAND. 


That  night   was  one    of   great  tumult   and  expectation    in 
Bristol.     The  partisans  of  Monmouth  knew  that  he  was  almost 
witiun  sigiit  of  their  city,  and  imagined  that  he  would  be  among 
them  before    daybreak.     About  an   hour   after  sunset  a  mer- 
chantman lying  at  the  quay  took  fire.  '  Such  an   occurrence,  in 
a  port  crowded  with  sliipping,  could  not_but  excite  great  alarm. 
The  wliole  river  was  iu  commotion.     The   streets  were  crowd-. 
vd.     StuUtious  cries  were  heard  amidst  the  darkness  and  confu- 
sion. It  was  afterwards  asserted,  both  by  Whigs  and  by  Tories, 
that  the  fire  had  been  kindled  by  the  friends   of  Moninouth,  in 
the  hope  that  the  trainbands  would  be   busied  in  preventiu"-  the 
conflagration  from  spreading,  and  that  in  the  meantime  the  rebel 
army  would  make  a  bold  push,  and  would  enter  the  city  on    the 
Somersetshire  side.     If  such  was  the  design  of  the  incendiaries, 
h  completely  failed.     Beaufort,  instead   of  sending  his    men  to 
the  quay,  kept  them  all  night   drawn  up  under  ai-ms   round  the 
beautiful  church  of   Saint   Mary  Redcliff,  on   the  south   of  the 
Avon.     He   would  see   Bristol   burnt   down,  he   said,   nay,  he 
would  burn  it  down  himself,  rather  than  that  it  should  be  occu- 
pied by  traitors.     He  was  able,  with  the  help  of  some   reguhn- 
cavalry  which  had  joined  him  from    Chippenham  a  few  hohrs 
before,  to  prevent  an  insurrection.     It  migiit  perhaps  havebren 
beyond  his  power  at  once   to  overawe  the  malecontents  within 
the  walls  and  to  repel   an   attack  from   without :  but  no    sucl; 
attack    was    made.     The   fire,    which    caused     so    much    com- 
motion at  Bristol,  was  distinctly  seen  at  Pensford.     Monmoutli, 
however,  did  not  think  it  expedient  to  change  his  plan.     lie  i-c- 
mained  quiet  till  sunrise,  and  then  marched  to  Keynsham.  There- 
he  found  the  bridge  repaired.     He  determined  to   let  his  army 
rest  during  the  afternoon,  and,  as   soon  as  night  came,  -to  pro- 
ceed to  Bi-istol.* 

But  it  was  too  late.  The  King's  forces  were  now  near  at 
iiand.  Colonel  Oglethorpe,  at  the  head  of  about  a  nandred 
Men  of  the  Life  Guards,  dashed  into  Keynsham,  scattered  tv/o 
troops  of  rebel  horse  which  ventured  to  oppose  him,  and  retired 

*  "Wade's  Confession  ;  Oldmixon',  T03';  Hafl.  MS.  6S45  ;  Charge  of  Jeffreys  to 
the  gi-and  jury  of  Bristol,  Sept.  21,  16fS. 


JAMKS    Tilli    SECOND.  537 

•ditcv  iiillicting  much  injury  and  suffering  little.  lu  tliese  cir- 
eumistauceo  it  was  thought  necessary  to  relinquish  tlie  desigu  oa 
Bristol*  . 

But  what  was  to  be  done  ?  Several  schemes  were  proposed 
and  discussed.  It  was  suggested  that  Monmouth  might  hasten 
to  Gloucester,  might  cross  the  Severn  there,  might  break  down 
tlie  bi'idge  boliind  him,  and,  with  his  right  flank  protected  by 
the  rivei-j  miglit- march  through  Worcestershire  into  Shropsliire 
and  Cheshii-e.  He  had  formerly  made  a  progress  througli  those 
counties,  and  had  been  received  there  with  as  much  enthusiasm 
as  m  Somersetshire  and  Devonshire.  His  presence  miglit  revive 
the  z'?;d  of  his  old  friends  ;  aiid  Lis  array  might  in  a  i^  \v  days 
be  swollen  to  double  its  present  numbers. 

Oa  full  consideration,  however,  it  appeared  that  this  plan, 
though  specious,  was  impracticable.  The  rebels  Vv^ere  ill  shod 
for  such  work  as  they  had  lately  undergone,  and  wei'e  exhaust- 
ed by  toiling,  day  after  day,  through  deep  mud  under  heavy 
rain.  Harassed  and  impeded  as  thoy  would  be  at  every  stage 
by  the  enemy's  cavalry,  tliey  could  not  hope  to  reach  Glouces- 
ter without  being  overtaken  by  the  main  body  of  the  royal  troops, 
and  forced  to  a  general  action  under  every  disadvantage. 

Then  it  was  proposed  to  enter  Wiltshire.  Persons  who 
professed  to  know  that  county  well  assured  the  Duke  that  he 
would  be  joined  there  by  such  strong  reinforcements  as  would 
make  it  safe  for  him  to  give  battle,  f 

He  took  this  advice,  and  turned  towards  Wiltshire.  He 
first  summoned  Bath.  But  Bath  was  strongly  garrisoned  for 
the  King  ;  and  Feversham  was  fast  approaching.  The  rebels, 
therefore,  made  no  attem[)t  on  the  walls,  but  hastened  to  Philip's 
Norton,  where  they  halted  on  the  evening  of  the  twenty-sixth 
of  June. 

Feversham  followed  them  thither.  Early  on  the  morninsr 
of  the  twentv-scventh  they  were  alarmed  bv  tidino-s  tJiat  he 
was  close  at  hand.  They  got  into  order,  and  lined  the  hedges 
leading  to  the  town. 

*  Loiicion  Gazette,  June  29,  16S5  ;  "Wade's  Confession 
t  Wade's  Confession. 


538  HISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND. 

The  aavanced  guard  of  the  royal  army  soon  appeared.  I( 
consisted  of  about  five  hundred  men,  commanded  by  the  Duke 
of  Grai'ton,  a  youth  of  bold  spirit  and  rough  manners,  who  was 
probably  eager  to  show  that  he  had  no  share  in  the  disloyal 
schemes  of  his  half  brother.  Grafton  soon  found  himself  in  a 
deep  lane  with  fences  on  both  sides  of  him,  from  which  a  gall- 
ing fire  of  musketry  was  kept  up.  Still  he  pushed  boldly  on 
till  he  came  to  the  entrance  of  Philip's  Norton.  There  his  way 
was  crossed  by  a  barricade,  fi'om  which  a  tliii'd  fire  met  him  full 
in  front.  His  men  now  lost  heart,  and  made  the  best  of  their 
way  back.  Before  they  got  out  of  the  lane  more  than  a  hun- 
dred of  them  had  been  killed  or  wounded.  Grafton's  retreat 
was  intercepted  by  some  of  the  rebel  cavalry  :  but  he  cut  his 
way  gallantly  through  them,  and  came  off  safe.* 

The  advanced  guard,  thus  repulsed,  fell  back  on  the  main 
body  of  the  royal  forces.  The  two  armies  were  now  face  to 
face  ;  and  a  few  shots  were  exchanged  that  did  little  or  no  ex- 
ecution. Neither  side  was  impatient  to  come  to  action.  Fever- 
sham  did  not  wish  to  fight  till  his  artillery  came  up,  and  fell 
back  to  Bradford.  Monmouth,  as  soon  as  the  night  closed  in, 
quitted  his  position,  marched  southward,  and  by  daybreak  ar- 
rived at  Frome,  where  he  hoped  to  find  reinforcements. 

Frome  was  as  zealous  in  his  cause  as  either  Taunton  or 
Bridgewater,  but  could  do  nothing  to  serve  him.  There  had 
been  a  rising  a  few  days  before  ;  and  Monmouth's  declaration 
had  been  posted  up  in  the  market  place.  But  the  news  of  this 
movement  had  been  carried  to  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  who  lay 
at  no  great  distance  with  the  Wiltshire  militia.  He  had  instant- 
ly marched  to  Frome,  had  routed  a  mob  of  rustics  who,  with 
scythes  and  pitchforks,  attempted  to  oppose  him,  had  entered 
the  town  and  had  disarmed  the  inhabitants.  No  weapons, 
therefore,  were  left  there  ;  nor  was  Monmouth  able  to  furnish 

any.f 

The  rebel  army  was  in  evil  case.  The  march  of  the  preced- 
ing night  had  been  wearisome.  The  rain  had  fallen  in  torrents  ; 

*  London  Gazette,  July  2, 1685  ;  Barillon,  July  6-16;  Wade's  Confession. 

June  30, 

t  London  Gazette,  June  29, 1685  ;  Van  Citters,  j^;n7ior 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  539 

and  the  roads  had  become  mere  quagmires.  Nothing  was  heard 
of  the  promised  succours  irom  VViltsliire.  One  messenger  brought 
news  that  Argyle's  forces  had  been  dispersed  in  Scotland. 
Another  reported  that  Feversham,  having  been  joined  by  his 
artillery,  was  about  to  advance.  Monmouth  understood  war  too 
well  not  to  know  that  his  followers,  with  all  their  courage  and 
all  their  zeal,  were  no  match  for  regular  soldiers.  He  had  till 
lately  flattered  himself  with  thp  hope  that  some  of  those  regi- 
ments which  he  had  formerly  commanded  would  pass  over  to 
his  standard  :  but  that  hope  he  was  now  compelled  to  relinquish. 
His  heart  failed  him.  He  could  scarcely  muster  firmness  enough 
to  give  orders.  lu  his  misery  he  complained  bitterly  of  the 
evil  counsellors  who  had  induced  him  to  quit  his  happy  retreat 
in  Brabant.  Against  Wildman  in  particular  he  broke  forth  into 
violent  imprecations.*  And  now  an  ignominious  thought  rose  in 
his  weak  and  agitated  mind.  He  would  leave  to  the  mercy  of 
the  government  the  tliousands  who  had,  at  his  call  and  for  his 
sake,  abandoned  their  quiet  fields  and  dwellings.  He  would 
steal  away  with  his  chief  officers,  would  gain  some  seaport  before 
his  flight  was  eusjjected,  would  escape  to  the  Continent,  and 
would  forget  his  ambition  and  his  shame  in  the  arms  of  Lady 
AVentworth.  He  seriously  discussed  this  scheme  with  his  lead- 
ing advisers.  Some  of  them,  trembling  for  their  necks,  listened 
to  it  with  approbation ;  but  Grey,  who,  by  the  admission  of 
his  detractors,  was  intrepid  everywhere  except  where  swords 
were  clashing  and  guns  going  off  around  him,  opposed  the  das- 
tardly proposition  with  great  ardour,  and  implored  the  Duke  to 
face  every  danger  rather  than  requite  with  ingratitude  and 
treachery  the  devoted  attachment  of  the  TVestern  peasantry. t 

The  scheme  of  flight  was  abandoned :  but  it  was  not  now 
easy  to  form  any  plan  for  a  campaign.  To  advance  towards 
London  would  have  been  madness  ;  for  the  ro:id  lay  right  across 
Salisbury  Plain  ;  and  on  that  vast  open  space  regular  troops, 
and  above  all  regular  cavalry,  would  have  acted  with  every  ad- 
vantage' against  undisciplined  men.     At  this  juncture  a  report 

*  Harl.  MS.  6845;  Wade'a  Confeesion. 
t  "Wade's  Confession ;  Eachard,  iii.  766. 


540  SISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND. 

readied  the  camp  that  the  rustics  of  tlie  marshes  near  Axbridtre 
had  risen  in  defence  of  the  Protestant  religion,  had  armed  them- 
selves with  flails,  bludgeons,  and  pitchforks,  and  wore  assembling 
b}'  thousands  at  Bridgewater.  Monmouth  determined  to  return 
thither,  and  to  strengthen  himself  with  these  new  allies."^ 

The  rebels  accordingly  proceeded  to  Wells,  and  arrived 
there  in  no  amiable  temper.  They  were,  with  few  exceptions, 
hostile  tJ  Prelacy;  and  they  showed  their  hostility  in  a  way 
very  lltJo  to  their  honour.  They  not  oidy  tore  the  lead  from 
the  roof  of  the  magnificent  Cathedral  to.  make  bullets,  an  act 
for  which  they  might  fairly  plead  tire  necessities  of  war,  but 
^.•  ;ntonly  defaced  the  ornaments  of  the  building.  Grey  with 
dllliculty  preserved  the  altar  from  the  insults  of  some  ruffians 
who  wished  to  carouse  round  it,  by  taking  his  stand  before  it 
with  his  sword  drawn. f 

On  Thursday,  the  second  of  July,  Monmouth  again  entered 
Bridgewater,  m  circumstances  far  less  cheering  than  those  in 
which  he  had  marched  thencb  ten  days  before.  The  reinforce- 
ment which  he  found  there  was  inconsiderable.  The  royal  army 
was  close  upon  him.  At  one  moment  he  thought  of  fortifying 
the  town  ;  and  hundreds  of  labourers  were  summoned  to  dig 
trenches  and  throw  up  mounds.  Then  his  mind  recurred  to  the 
plan  of  marching  into  Cheshire,  a  plan  which  he  had  rejected  as 
impracticable  when  he  was  at  Kcynsham,  and  which  assuredly 
was  not  more  practicable  now  that  he  was  at  Bridgewater. $ 

While  lie  was  thus  wavering  between  projects  equally  hope- 
less, the  King's  forces  came  in  sight.  They  consisted  of  about 
two  thousand  five  hundred  regular  troops,  and  of  about  fifteen 
hundred  of  the  Wiltshire  militia.  Early  on  the  morning  of 
Sunday,  the  fifth  of  July,  they  left  Somerton,  and  pitched  their 
tents  that  day  about  three  miles  from  Bridgewater,  on  the  plain 
of  Sedgemoor. 

Dr.  Peter  Mew,  Bishop  of  Winchester,  accompanied  them. 
This  prelate  had  in  his  youth  borne  arms  for  Charles  the  First 

*  V/.-idc's  Coufession. 

t  LojiUon Gazette,  July  6,  16S5  :  Van  Citters,  July  .?-].•!;  Oldmixon,  703. 

J  Wade'H  Confession. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  541 

against  the  Parliament.  Neither  his  years  nor  his  profession  liad 
wholly  extinguished  his  martial  ardour  ;  and  he  probably  thought 
that  the  appearance  of  a  fatlier  of  the  Protestant  Church  in  tiie 
Kiuo''s  camp  might  confirm  the  loyalty  of  some  honest  men  who 
were  waveruig  between  their  horror  of  Popery  and  their  liorrof 
of  rebellion. 

The  steeple  of  the  parish  church  of  Eridgewater  is  said  to 
be  the  loftiest  of  Somersetshire,  and  commands  a  wide  view 
over  the  surrounding  country.  IMonmouth,  accompanied  by 
tome  of  his  officers,  went  up  to  the  top  of  the  square  tower  from 
which  the  spire  ascends,  and  observed  through  a  telescope  the 
position  of  the  enemy.  Beneath  him  lay  a  flat  expanse,  now 
rich  with  cornfields  and  apple  trees,  but  then,  as  its  name  im- 
ports, for  the  most  part  a  dreary  morass.  When  the  rains  were 
heavy,  and  the  Parret  and  its  tributary  streams  rose  above  their 
banks,  this  tract  was  often  flooded.  It  was  indeed  ancient- 
ly part  of  that  great  swamp  which  is  renowned  in  our  early 
chronicles  as  having  arrested  the  progress  of  two  successive 
races  of  invaders,  which  long  protected  the  Celts  against  the 
aorrrrpssions  of  the  kinsfs  of  Wessex,  and  Vv^hich  sheltered  Alfred 
fi'om  the  pursuit  of  the  Danes.  In  those  remote  times  this  re- 
gion could  be  traverf  ed  only  in  boats.  It  was  a  vast  pool,  where 
in  were  scattered  many  islets  of  shifting  and  treacherous  soil, 
overhung  with  rank  jungle,  and  swarming  with  deer  and  wild 
swine.  Evexi  in  the  days  of  the  Tndors,  the  traveller  whose 
journey  lay  from  Ilchester  to  Bridgewater  was  forced  to  make 
a  circuit  of  several  miles  in  order  to  avoid  the  waters.  When 
Monmouth  looked  upon  Sedgemoor,  it  had  been  partially  re- 
claimed by  art,  and  was  intersected  by  many  deep  and  wide 
trenches  which,  in  that  country,  are  called  rhines.  In  the  midst 
of  the  moor  rose,  clustering  round  the  towers  of  churches,  a  few 
villages  of  which  the  names  seem  to  indicate  that  they  once  were 
surrounded  by  waves.  In  one  of  these  villages,  called  Weston 
Zoyland,  the  royal  cavalry  lay  ;  and  Feversham  had  fixed  his 
head  quarters  there.  Many  persons  still  living  have  seen  the 
daughter  of  the  servant  girl  who  waited  on  him  that  day  at  table  ; 
and  a  large  dish  of  Persian  ware,  which  was  set  before   him,  is 


542  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Still  carefully  preserved  in  the  neighbourhood.  It  is  to  be  ob- 
served that  the  population  of  Somersetshire  does  not,  like  that 
of  the  manufacturing  districts,  consist  of  emigrants  from  distant 
places.  It  is  by  no  means  unusual  to  find  farraei's  wlio  cultivate 
the  same  land  which  their  ancestors  cultivated  when  the  Plan- 
tagenets  reigned  in  England.  The  Somersetshire  traditions  are, 
therefore,  of  no  small  value  to  a  historian.* 

At  a  greater  distance  from  Bridgewater  lies  the  villao-e  of 
Middlczoy.  In  that  village  and  its  neighbourhood,  the  Wilt- 
shii-e  militia  were  quartered,  under  the  command  of  Pembroke. 

On  the  open  moor,  not  far  from  Chedzoy,  were  encamped 
several  battalions  of  regular  infantry.  Monmouth  looked 
gloomily  on  tliem.  He  could  not  but  remember  how,  a  few 
years  before,  he  had,  at  the  head  of  a  column  composed  of  some 
of  those  very  men,  driven  before  him  in  confusion  the  fierce  en- 
thusiasts who  defended  Bothwell  Bridge.  He  could  distino-uish 
among  the  hostile  ranks  that  gallant  band  which  was  then  called 
from  the  name  of  its  Colonel,  Dumbarton's  regiment,  but  which 
has  long  been  known  as  the  first  of  the  line,  and  which,  in  all  the 
four  quarters  of  the  world,  has  nobly  supported  its  early  reputa- 
tion. "I  know  those  men,"  said  Monmouth  ;  "  thev  will  fight 
If  I  had  but  them,  all  would  go  well  "  f 

Yet  the  aspect  of  the  enemy  was  not  altogether  discourag- 
ing. The  three  divisions  of  the  royal  army  lay  far  apart  from 
one  another.  There  was  an  appearance  of  negligence  and  of 
relaxed  discipline  in  all  their  movements.  It  was  reported  that 
they  were  drinking  themselves  drunk  Avith  the  Zoyland  cider. 
The  incapacity  of  Feversham,  who  commanded  in  chief,  was 
notorious.  Even  at  this  momentous  crisis  he  thought  only  of  eat- 
ing and  sleeping.  Churchill  was  indeed  a  captain  equal  to  tasks 
far  mofe  arduous  than  that  of  scattering  a  crowd  of  ill  armed  and 

♦Matt.  West.  Flor.  Hist.,  A.  D.  788;  MS.  Chronicl- quoted  by  Mr.  Sharon 
Turner  in  the  History  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  book  IV.  chap,  xix  ;  Drayton's 
Polyolbion,  iii  ;  Leland's  Itinerary  ;  Oldniixon,  703.  Oldniixon  was  then  at 
Bridgewater,  and  probably  saw  tlie  Duke  on  the  church  tower.  The  dish  men 
tioned  in  the  text  is  the  property  of  Mr.  Stradling,  who  has  taken  laudable  pains 
to  preserve  the  r.lics  and  traditions  of  the  Western  insurrection. 

t  Oldniixon.  70.3. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  543 

ill  trained  peasants.  But  the  genius,  which,  at  a  later  period, 
humbled  six  Marshals  of  France,  was  not  now  in  its  proper  place, 
Feversham  told  Churchill  little,  and  gave  him  no  encouragement 
to  offer  any  suggestion.  The  lieutenant,  conscious  of  superior 
abilities  and  science,  impatient  of  the  control  of  a  chief  whom 
he  despised,  and  tremblin/y  for  the  fate  of  the  army,  nevertheless 
preserved  his  characteristic  self-command,  and  dissembled  his 
feelings  so  well  that  Feversham  praised  his  submissive  alacrity, 
and  promised  to  report  it  to  the  King.* 

Monmouth,  having  observed  the  disposition  of  the  royal 
forces,  and  having  been  apprised  of  the  state  m  which  they  were, 
conceived  that  a  night  attack  might  be  attended  with  success. 
He  resolved  to  run  the  hazard  ,  and  preparations  were  instantly 
made. 

It  was  Sund.iy  ;  and  his  followers,  who  had,  for  the  most 
part,  been  brought  up  after  the  Puritan  fashion,  passed  a  great 
part  of  the  day  in  religious  exercises.  The  Castle  Field,  iu 
which  the  army  was  encamped,  presented  a  spectacle  such  as, 
since  the  disbanding  of  Cromwell's  soldiers,  England  had  never 
seen.  The  dissenting  preachers  who  had  taken  arms  aganist 
Popery,  and  some  of  whom  had  probably  fought  ui  the  great 
civil  war,  prayed  and  preached  in  red  coats  and  huge  jackboots, 
with  swords  by  their  sides.  Ferguson  was  one  of  those  who 
harangued.  He  took  for  his  text  the  awful  imprecation  by 
which  the  Israelites  who  dwelt  beyond  Jordan  cleared  them- 
selves from  the  charge  ignorantly  brought  against  them  by  their 
brethren  on  the  other  side  of  the  river.  "  The  Lord  God  of 
Gods,  the  Lord  God  of  Gods,  he  knoweth  ;  and  Israel  he  shall 
know.  If  it  be  in  rebellion,  or  if  in  transgression  against  the 
Lord,  save  us  not  this  day."  f 

That  an  attack  was  to  be  made  under  cover  of  the  night  was 
no  secret  in  Bridgewater.  The  town  was  full  of  women,  who 
had  repaired  thither  by  hundreds  from  the  surrounding  region, 
to  see  their  husbands,  sons,  lovers,  and  brothers  once  more. 
There  were   many   sad  partings   that  day  ;    and  many   parted 

*  Churchili  to  Clarendon,  July  4,  1685. 
i  Oldmixon,  703  ;  Observator,  Aug.  1, 1685 


544  HISTORY    OV    ENGLAND. 

never  to  meet  again.*  The  report  of  the  intended  attack  came 
to  the  ears  of  a  young  girl  who  was  zealous  for  the  King. 
Though  of  modest  character,  she  had  the  courage  to  resolve 
that  she  would  herself  bear  the  intelligence  to  Feversham. 
She  stole  out  of  Bridgewater,  and  made  her  way  to  the  royal 
camp.  But  that  camp  was  not  a  place  where  female  innocence 
could  be  safe.  Even  the  officers,  despisuig  alike  the  irregular 
force  to  which  they  were  opposed,  and  the  negligent  general 
who  commanded  them,  had  indulged  largely  in  wine,  and  were 
ready  for  any  excess  of  licentiousness  and  cruelty.  One  of 
thorn  seized  the  unhappy  maiden,  refused  to  listen  to  her  errand, 
and  brutally  outraged  her.  She  fled  in  agonies  of  rage  and 
shame,  leaving  the  wicked  army  to  its  doom.t 

And  now  the  time  for  the  great  hazard  drew  near.  The 
night  was  not  ill  suited  for  such  an  enterprise.  The  moon  was 
indeed  at  the  full,  and  the  northern  streamers  were  shining 
brilliantly.  But  the  marsh  fog  lay  so  thick  on  Sedgemoor  that 
no  object  could  be  discerned  thei-e  at  the  distance  of  fifty 
paces.  $ 

The  clock  struck  eleven  ;  and  the  Duke  with  his  body  guard 
rode  out  of  the  Castle.  He  was  not  in  the  frame  of  mind 
which  befits  one  who  is  about  to  strike  a  decisive  blow.  The 
very  children  who  pressed  to  see  him  pass  observed,  Uid  I  ng 
remembered,  that  his  look  was  sad  and  full  of  evil  augury. 
His  army  marched  by  a  circuitous  path,  near  six  miles  in  length, 

*  Paschall's  Narrative  in  Heywood's  Appendix. 

t  Kennet,  ed.  1710,  iii.  432.  I  am  forced  to  believe  tliattliis  lamentable  tory 
is  tiTie.  Tlie  Bishop  declares  that  it  was  communicated  to  him  in  the  year  171S 
by  a  brave  officer  of  the  Blues,  who  had  foiight  ?*  Sedgemoor,  and  wh  had  him- 
Belf  seen  the  poor  girl  depart  in  aji  agony  of  disUe;  s. 

t  Narrative  of  an  oflicer  of  the  Horse  G.iards  in  Kennet,  ed  1718,  iii.  432; 
MS.  Journal  of  the  "Western  Rebellion,  kept  by  Mr.  Edv/r.rd  Dummer ;  Drydeu's 
Hind  and  Panther,  part  II.    The  lines  of  Dryden  are  remarkable : — 

"Such  were  the  pleasing  tnumphs  of  the  sky 
Fot  James's  late  nocturnal  victory. 
The  fireworks  which  his  an£;els  made  obov*. 
The  plerj^e  of  his  almighty  patron's  love, 
Tsaw  myself  the  lambent  ea.'.y  liffht 
Gild  the  brown  horror  and  dispel  the  night. 
The  messenger  with  speed  the  tidinirs  hore, 
News  which  three  lahou  in;  nations  did  restore  : 
3ut  heaven's  own  Nuntius  was  arrived  before." 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  51.1 

towards  the  royal  encampment  on  Sedgemoor.  Part  of  tiic 
route  is  to  this  day  called  War  Lane.  The  foot  were  led  l.v 
Monmouth  himself.  The  horse  were  confided  to  Grey,  in  sjiitc 
of  the  remonstrances  of  some  who  remembei-ed  the  mishap  ;:t 
Bridport.  Orders  were  given  that  strict  silence  should  be  ])rc- 
served,  that  no  drum  should  be  beaten,  and  no  shot  fired.  Tlu 
word  by  which  the  insurgents  were  to  recognise  one  another  in 
the  darkness  was  Soho.  It  had  doubtless  been  selected  m 
allusion  to  Soho  Fields  in  London,  where  their  leader's  palace 
stood.* 

At  about  one  in  the  morning  of  Monday  the  sixth  of  July, 
the  rebels  were  on  the  open  moor.  But  between  them  and  the 
enemy  lay  three  broad  rhines  filled  with  water  and  soft  mud. 
Two  of  these,  called  the  Elack  Ditch  and  the  Langmooi-  Rhine, 
Monmouth  knew  that  he  must  pass.  But,  strange  to  say,  the 
existence  of  a  trench,  called  the  Bussex  Rhine,  which  immedi- 
ately covered  the  royal  encampment,  had  not  been  mentioned 
to  him  by  any  of  his  scouts 

The  wains  which  carried  the  ammunition  remained  at  the 
entrance  of  the  moor  The  horse  and  foot,  in  r.  long  narrow 
column,  passed  the  Black  Ditch  by  a  causeway.  There  was  a 
similar  causeway  across  the  Langmoor  Rhine  but  the  guide, 
in  the  fog,  missed  his  way  There  was  some  delay  and  some 
tumult  before  the  error  could  be  rectified.  At  length  the 
passage  was  effected :  but,  in  the  confusion,  a  pistol  went  off. 
Some  men  of  the  Horse  Guards,  who  were  en  watch,  heard  the 
report,  and  perceived  that  a  great  multitude  was  advancing 
through  the  mist.  They  fired  their  carbines,  and  galloped  off 
in  different  directions  to  give  the  alarm.  Some  hastened  to 
Weston  Zoyland,  where  the  cavalry  lay.  One  trooper  spurred 
to  the  encampment  of  the  ir.fautry,  and  cried,  out  ^■cIlcmently 
that  the  enemy  was  at  hand.  The  drums  of  Dumbarton's  regi- 
ment beat  to  arms;  and  the  men  got  fast  into  their  ranks.     It 

*  It  has  been  saiil  by  several  writers,  ami  airiong  them  by  Pennant,  that  tin 
di9tri(-t  in  Loudon  called  Soho  derived  its  name  from  the  watchword  of  Tiloz-.- 
mouth'w  army  at  Sedgemoor.  jMcntion  of  Soho  Fields  will  ba  found  iu  mai'V 
books  printed  before  the  Western  insurrection  ;  for  example,  in  Chamberlayne's 
State  of  England,  1684. 

35 


516  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

was  time  ;  for  Monmouth  was  already  drawing  up  his  army  for 
iction.  He  ordered  Grey  to  lead  the  way  with  the  cavalry, 
and  followed  himself  at  the  head  of  the  infantry.  Grey  pushed 
on  till  his  progress  was  unexpectedly  arrested  by  the  Bussex 
Rhine.  Ou  the  opposite  side  of  the  ditch  the  King's  foot  were 
hastily  forming  in  order  of  battle. 

"  For  whom  are  you  ?  "  called  out  an  officer  of  the  Foot 
Guards.  "  For  the  King,"  replied  a  voice  from  the  ranks  of 
the  rebel  cavalry.  "  For  which  King?"  was  then  demanded. 
The  answer  was  a  shout  of  "  King  Monmouth,"  mingled  with 
the  war  cry,  which  forty  years  before  had  been  inscribed  on  the 
colours  of  the  jiarliamentary  regiments,  "  God  Avith  us."  The 
royal  troops  instantly  fired  such  a  volley  of  musketry  as  sent 
the  rebel  horse  flying  in  all  directions.  The  world  agreed  to 
ascribe  this  ignominious  rout  to  Grey's  pusillanimity.  Yet  it  is 
by  no  means  clear  that  Churchill  would  have  succeeded  bettei 
at  the  head  of  men  who  had  never  before  handled  arms  ou 
horseback,  and  whose  horses  were  unused,  not  only  to  stand 
fire,  but  to  obey  the  rein. 

A  few  minutes  after  the  Duke's  horse  had  dispersed  thorn, 
selves  over  the  moor,  his  infantry  came  up  running  fast,  and 
guided  through  the  gloom  by  the  lighted  matches  of  Dumbar- 
ton's resiment. 

Monmouth  was  startled  Dy  finding  that  a  broad  and  pro- 
found trench  lay  between  him  and  the  camp  which  he  had 
hoped  to  surprise.  The  insurgents  halted  on  the  edge  of  the 
rhine,  and  fired.  Part  of  the  royal  infantry  on  the  opposite 
bank  returned  the  fire.  During  three  quarters  of  an  hour  the 
roar  of  the  musketry  was  incessant.  The  Somersetshire  peas- 
ants behaved  themselves  as  if  they  had  been  veteran  soldiersj 
save  only  that  they  levelled  their  pieces  too  high. 

But  now  the  other  divisions  of  the  royal  army  were  in  mo- 
tion. The  Life  Guards  and  Blues  came  2:»ricking  fast  from 
Weston  Zoyland,  and  scattered  in  an  instant  some  of  Grey's 
horse,  who  had  attemjjted  to  rally.  The  fugitives  spread  a 
panic  among  their  comrades  in  the"  rear,  who  had  charge  of  the 
ammunition.      The  waggoners  drove  off  at  full  speed,  and  nevel 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  547 

stopped  till  they  were  many  miles  from  the  field  of  battle. 
Monmouth  had  hitherto  done  his  part  like  a  stout  and  able 
warrior.  lie  had  been  seen  on  foot,  pike  in  hand,  encouraging 
his  infantry  by  voice  and  by  example.  But  he  was  too  well  ac- 
quainted with  military  affairs  not  to  know  that  all  was  over. 
His  men  had  lost  the  advantage  which  surprise  and  darkness 
had  given  them.  They  were  deserted  by  the  horse  and  by  the 
ammunition  waggons.  The  King's  forces  were  now  united  and 
in  good  order.  Feversham  had  been  awakened  by  the  firing,, 
had  got  out  of  bed,  had  adjusted  his  cravat,  had  looked  at  him- 
self well  in  tlie  glass,  and  had  come  to  see  what  his  men  were 
doing.  Meanwhile,  what  was  of  much  more  importance, 
Churchill  had  rapidly  made  an  entirely  new  disposition  of  the 
royal  infantry.  The  day  was  about  to  break.  The  event  of  a 
conflict  on  an  open  plain,  by  broad  sunlight,  could  not  be  doubt- 
ful. Yet  Monmouth  should  have  felt  that  it  was  not  for  him  to 
fly,  while  thousands  whom  affection  for  him  had  hurried  to  de- 
struction were  still  fighting  manfully  in  his  cause.  But  vain 
hopes  and  the  intense  love  of  life  prevailed.  He  saw  that  if 
he  tarried  the  royal  cavalry  would  soon  intercept  his  retreat. 
He  mounted  and  rode  from  the  field. 

Yet  his  foot,  though  deserted,  made  a  gallant  stand.  The 
Life  Guards  attacked  them  on  the  right,  the  Blues  on  the  left ; 
but  the  Somersetshire  clowns,  with  theii-  scythes  and  the  butt 
ends  of  their  muskets,  faced  the  royal  horse  like  old  soldiers. 
Oglethorpe  made  a  vigorous  attempt  to  break  them  and  was  man- 
fully repulsed.  Sarsfield,  a  brave  Irish  officer,  whose  name 
afterwards  obtained  a  melancholy  celebrity,  charged  on  the 
other  flank.  His  men  were  beaten  back.  He  was  himseli 
struck  to  the  ground,  and  lay  for  a  time  as  one  dead.  But  the 
struggle  of  the  hardy  rustics  could  not  last.  Their  powder 
and  ball  were  spent.  Cries  were  heard  of  "  Ammunition  !  For 
God's  sake  ammunition  !  "  But  no  ammunition  was  at  hand. 
And  now  the  King's  artillery  came  up.  It  had  been  posted 
half  a  mile  Off,  on  the  high  road  from  "Weston  Zoyland  to 
Bridgewater.  So  defective  were  then  the  appointments  of  an 
English  army  that  there   would  have  been   much   difficulty  in 


548  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

dragging  the  great  guns  to  tlie  place  where  the  battle  was  raging', 
had  not  the  Bishop  of  Winchester  offered  his  coach  horses  and 
traces  for  the  purpose.  This  interference  of  a  Christian  prelate 
in  a  matter  of  blood  has,  with  strange  inconsistency,  been  con- 
demned by  some  Whig  writers  who  can  see  nothing  criminal  in 
the  conduct  of  the  numerous  Puritan  ministers  then  in  arms 
against  the  government.  Even  when  the  guns  had  arrived, 
there  was  such  a  want  of  gunners  that  a  serjeant  of  Dumbar- 
ton's regiment  was  forced  to  take  on  himself  the  management 
of  several  pieces.*  The  cannon,  however,  though  ill  served, 
brought  the  engagement  to  a  speedy  close.  The  pikes  of  the 
rebel  battalions  began  to  shake  :  the  ranks  broke ;  the  King's 
cavalry  charged  again,  and  bore  down  everything  before  them  ; 
the  King's  infantry  came  pouring  across  the  ditch.  Even  in 
that  extremity  the  Mendip  miners  stood  bravely  to  their  arms, 
and  sold  their  lives  dearly.  But  the  rout  was  in  a  few  minutes 
complete.  Three  hundred  of  the  soldiers  had  been  killed  or 
wounded.  Of  the  rebels  more  than  a  thousand  lay  dead  on  the 
inoor.t  • 

*  Tliere  is  a  -warrant  of  James  directing  that  foi-ty  pounds  should  be  paid  to 
Sergeant  Weems,  of  Dumbarton's  regiment,  "  for  good  service  in  the  action  at 
Sedgenioor  in  firing  the  great  guns  against  the  rebels.' — Historical  Eecordof  the 
First  or  Koyal  Regiment  of  Foot. 

t  James  the  Second's  account  of  the  battle  of  Sedgemoor  in  Lord  Hardwicke's 
State  Papers  ;  Wade's  Confession  ;  Ferguson's  MS.  Narrative  in  Eachard,  iii.  768 ; 
Narrative  of  an  officer  of  tlie  Horse  Guards  in  Keiinet.  ed.  1719,  iii.  432,  London 
Gazette,  July  9,  1685  ;  Oldmixon,  703  ;  Paschall's  Narrative  ;  Burnet,  i.  643  ;  Eve- 
lyn'sBiary,  July  8;  Van(.itters,  July  7-17  ;  Barillon,  July9-19;  Reresby's Memoirs ; 
tlie  Duke  of  Buckingham's  battle  of  Sedgemoor,  a  Farce ;  MS.  Journal  of  the 
Western  Rebellion,  kept  by  Mr.  Edward  Dummer,  then  serving  in  the  train  of 
artillery  employed  by  His  JMajesty  for  the  suppression  of  the  same.  The  last 
mentioned  manuscript  is  in  the  Pepysian  library,  and  is  of  the  greatest  value, 
not  on  account  of  the  narrative,  which  contains  little  that  is  remarkable,  but  on 
account  of  the  plans,  which  exhibit  the  battle  in  four  or  five  different  stages. 

'•  The  history  of  a  battle,"  says  the  greatest  of  living  generals,  "  is  not  unlike 
the  history  of  a  hall.  Some  individuals  may  recollect  all  the  little  events  of 
which  the  great  result  is  the  battle  won  or  lost;  but  no  individual  can  recollect 
the    rder  in  which,  or  the  exact  moment  at  which,  they  occurred,  which  makes 

all  the  difference  as  to  their  value  or  importance Just  to  show  you  how 

little  reliance  can  De  placed  oven  on  what  aie  supported  the  best  accounts  of  a 

battle,  I  mention  tnat  there  are  some  circumstances  mentioned  in  General 's 

pceount  which  did  not  occur  as  he  relates  them.  It  is  impossible  to  say  when 
each  important  occurence  took  place,  or  in  what  order."— Wellington  Papers, 
Aug.  8,  and  17,  1815. 

The  battle  Goncerning  which  the  Duke  of  "Wellington  wrote  thus  waa  that  of 


JAMES    THE    SECOND,  649 

So  ended  the  last  fight  deserving  the  name  of  battle,  that 
has  been  fought  on  Englisli  ground.  The  impression  left  on 
the  simple  inhabitants  of  the  neighbourhood  was  deep  and  laf^ting. 
That  impression,  indeed,  has  been  frequently  renewed.  For 
even  in  our  own  time  the  plough  and  the  spade  have  not  seldom 
turned  up  ghastly  memorials  of  the  slaughter,  skulls,  and  thighr 
bones,  and  strange  weapons  made  out  of  implements  of  hus- 
bandry. Old  peasants  related  very  recently  that,  in  their  child- 
hood, they  were  accustomed  to  play  on  the  moor  at  the  fight 
between  King  James's  men  and  King  Monmouth's  men,  and 
that  King  Monmouth's  men  always  raised  the  cry  of  Soho.* 

What  seems  most  extraordinary  in  the  battle  of  Sedgemoor 
IS  that  the  event  should  have  been  for  a  moment  doubtful,  and 
that  the  rebels  should  have  resisted  so  long.  That  five  or  six 
thousand  colliers  and  ploughmen  should  contend  during  an  hour 
with  half  that  number  of  regular  cavaliy  and  infantry  would 
now  be  thought  a  miracle.     Our  wonder  will,  perhaps,  be   di- 

■Waterloo,  fought  only  a  few  ■weeks  before,  by  broad  day,  under  hi.;  own  vigilant 
and  experienced  eye.  YvTiat  then  must  be  the  difficulty  of  compiling  from  twelve 
or  thirteen  narratives  an  account  of  a  battle  fought  more  than  a,  hundred  and 
sixty  years  ago  in  such  darkness  that  not  a  man  of  those  engaged  could  see  fifty 
paces  before  him  ?  The  difficulty  is  aggravated  by  the  circumstance  thnt  those 
witnesses  v.lio  liad  the  best  opportunity  of  knowing  the  truth  were  by  no  means  in- 
clined to  tell  it.  The  Paper  which  I  have  placed  at  the  head  of  my  list  of  author- 
ities Vtas  evidently  drawn  up  with  extreme  partiality  to  Feversham.  Wade  was 
writing  under  the  dread  of  the  halter.  Ferguson,  who  was  seldom  scrupulous  about 
tha  truih  of  his  assertions,  lied  on  this  occasion  like  Bobailil  or  Parolles.  Old- 
riixon,  who  v/as  a  boy  at  Bridgewater  when  the  battle  was  f  ought,and  passed  a  great 
part  of  his  subsequent  life  there,  was  so  much  under  the  influence  of  local  pas- 
sions that  his  local  information  was  useless  to  him.  His  desire  to  magnify  the 
valour  of  the  Somersetshire  peasants,  a  valour  which  their  enemies  acknowledged 
and  which  did  not  need  to  be  set  off  by  exaggeration  and  fiction,  led  him  to  com- 
pose an  absurd  romance.  The  eulogy  which  Barillon,  a  Frenchman  accustomed 
to  despise  raw  levies,  pronounced  on  the  vanquished  army,  is  of  much  more  value, 
"  Son  iniirterie  fit  fort  bien.  On  eut  de  la  peine  k  les  rompre,  et  les  soldats  com- 
battoient  avec  les  crosses  de  mousquetet  les  scies  qu'ils  avoient  au  bout  de  grands 
bastons  au  lieu  do  picques." 

Lit',  le  is  now  to  bo  learned  by  visiting  the  field  of  battle  ;  for  the  face  of  the 
country  hns  been  greatly  changed  ;  nnd  the  old  Bussex  Rhine  on  the  banks  of 
wliich  the  great  strngtrle  took  place,  has  long  disappeared.  The  rhino  iiow 
called  by  Uiat  name  is  of  later  date,  and  takes  a  different  course. 

1  h.'U'e  derived  much  assistance  from  Mr.  Roberts's  account  of  the  battle. 
Life  of  Monmouth,  chap.  xxii.  His  narrative  is  in  the  main  confirmed  by 
Dummer's  plans. 

♦  I  learned  these  things  from  persons  living  close  to  Sedgemoor. 


550  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

minished  when  we  remember  that,  in  the  time  of  James  the 
Second,  the  discipline  of  the  reguhir  army  was  excremely  lax, 
and  tliat,  on  the  other  hand,  the  peasantry  were  accustomed  to 
serve  in  the  militia.  The  difference,  therefore,  between  a  regi- 
ment of  the  Foot  Guards  and  a  regiment  of  clowns  just  enroll- 
ed, though  doubtless  considerable,  was  by  no  means  what  it 
now  is.  Monmouth  did  not  loiid  a  mere  mob  to  attack  good 
soldiers.  For  his  followers  were  not  altogether  without  a  tinc- 
ture of  soldiership  ;  and  Feversham's  troops,  when  compared 
with  English  trooj^s  of  our  time,  might  almost  be  called  a  mob. 

It  was  four  o'clock  :  the  sun  was  rising ;  and  the  routed 
army  came  pouring  into  the  streets  of  Bridgewater.  The  up* 
roar,  the  blood,  the  gashes,  the  ghastly  figures  which  sank  down 
and  never  rose  again,  spread  horror  and  dismay  through  the 
town.  The  pursuers,  too,  were  close  behind.  Those  inhabi- 
tants who  had  favoured  the  insurrection  expected  sack  and 
massacre,  and  implored  the  protection  of  their  neighbours  who 
professed  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  or  had  made  themselves 
conspicuous  by  Tory  politics  ;  and  it  is  acknowledged  bj!-  the 
bitterest  of  Whig  historians  that  this  protection  was  kindly  and 
generously  given.* 

During  that  day  the  conquerors  continued  to  chase  the  fugi- 
tives. The  neiafhbourinsf  villajjers  lonnf  remembered  with  what 
a  clatter  of  horsehoofs  and  what  a  storm  of  curses  the  whirlwuid 
of  cavalry  swept  by.  Before  evening  five  hundred  jDrisoners 
had  been  crowded  into  the  parish  church  of  AYestou  Zoyland. 
Eighty  of  them  were  wounded ;  and  five  expired  within  the 
consecrated  walls.  Great  numbers  of  labourers  were  impressed 
for  the  purpose  of  burying  the  slain.  A  few,  who  were  notori- 
ously partial  to  the  vanquished  side,  were  set  apart  for  the  hid- 
eons  office  of  quartering  the  captives.  The  tithing  men  of  the 
neighbouring  parishes  were  busied  in  setting  up  gibbets  and 
providing  chains.  All  this  while  tlic  bells  of  "Weston  Zoyland 
and  Chedzoy  rang  joyously  ;  and  the  soldiers  sang  and  rioted  on 
the  raoor  amidst  the  corpses.  For  the  farmers  of  the  neighbour- 
hood had  made    haste,  as    soon  as  the   event  of  the   fight  was 

«  Oldmixon,  704. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  551 

known  to  send  hogsheads  of  their  best  cider  as  peace  offerings  to 
the  victors.* 

Feversham  passed  for  a  goodnatured  man :  but  he  was  a 
foreigner,  ignorant  of  the  laws  and  careless  of  the  feelings  of 
the  English.  He  was  accustomed  to  the  military  license  of 
France,  and  had  learned  from  his  great  kinsman,  ihe  conqueror 
and  devastator  of  the  Palatinate,  not  indeed  how  to  conquer, 
but  how  to  devastate.  A  considerable  number  of  prisoners 
were  immediately  selected  for  execution.  Among  them  was  a 
youth  famous  for  his  speed.  Hopes  were  held  out  to  him  that 
his  life  would  be  spared  if  ho  could  run  a  race  with  one  of  the 
colts  of  the  marsh.  The  space  through  which  the  man  kept  up 
with  the  horse  is  still  marked  by  well  known  bounds  on  the 
moor,  and  is  about  three  quarters  of  a  mile.  Feversham  was. 
not  ashamed,  after  seeing  the  performance,  to  send  the  wretch- 
ed performer  to  the  gallows.  The  next  day  a  long  line  of  gib- 
bets appeared  on  the  road  leading  from  Bridgewater  to  Weston 
Zoyland.  On  each  gibbet  a  j^risoner  was  suspended.  Four  of 
the  sufferers  were  left   to  rot  in  irons. f 

Meanwhile  Monmouth,  accompanied  by  Grey,  by  Buyse, 
and  by  a  few  other  friends,  was  flying  from  the  field  of  battle. 
At  Chedzoy  he  stopped  a  moment  to  mount  a  fresh  horse  and 
to  hide  his  blue  riband  and  his  George,  He  then  hastened 
towards  the  Bristol  Channel.  From  the  rising  ground  on  the 
north  of  the  field  of  battle  he  saw  the  flash  and  the  smoke  of 
the  last  volley  fired  by  his  deserted  followers.  Before  six 
o'clock  he  was  twenty  miles  from  Sedgemoor.  Some  of  his 
companions  advised  him  to  cross  the  water,  and  seek  refuge  in 
Wales  ;  and  this  would  undoubtedly  have  been  his  wisest  course. 
He  would  have  been  in  Wales  many  hours  before  the  news  of 
his  defeat  was  known  there  ;  and  in  a  country  so  wild  and 
so  remote  from  the  seat  of  government,  he  might  have 
remained  long  undiscovered.  He  determined,  however,  to 
push  for  Hampshire,  in  the  hope  that  he  might  lurk  in  the 
cabins  of  deerstealers  among  the   oaks  of   the  New  Forest,  till 

♦Locke's  Western  UebelHon  ;   Straclliiig's  Chilton  Priory. 

t  Locke's  Western  Rebellion  ;  Stradling's  Chilton  Priory  ;  Oldmixon,  704, 


552  '  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

means  of  conveyixnce  to  the  Continent  could  be  procured.  He 
therefore,  with  Grey  and  the  German,  turned  to  the  southeast. 
But  the  way  was  beset  with  dangers.  The  three  fugitives  had 
to  traverse  a  country  in  which  every  one  already  knew  the 
event  of  the  battle,  and  in  which  no  traveller  of  suspicious  ap- 
pearance could  escape  a  close  scrutiny.  They  rode  on  all  day, 
shunning  towns  and  villages.  Nor  was  this  so  difficult  as  it 
may  now  appear.  For  men  then  living  could  remember  the 
time  when  the  wild  deer  ranged  freely  through  a  succession  oi 
forests  from  the  banks  of  the  Avon  in  Wiltshire  to  the  southern 
coast  of  Ilampsliire.^**'  At  length,  on  Cranbourne  Chase,  the 
strength  of  the  horses  failed.  They  were  therefore  turned 
loose.  The  bridles  and  saddles  were  concealed.  Monmouth 
and  his  friends  procured  rustic  attire,  disguised  themselves,  and 
proceeded  on  foot  towards  the  New  Forest.  They  passed  the 
night  in  the  open  air  :  but  before  morning  they  were  surrounded 
.  on  every  side  by  toils.  Lord  Lumley,  who  lay  at  Riugwood 
with  a  strong  body  of  the  Sussex  militia,  had  sent  forth  parties 
in  every  direction.  Sir  William  Portman,  with  the  Somerset 
militia,  had  formed  a  chain  of  posts  from  the  sea  to  the  northern 
extremity  of  Dorset.  At  five  in  the  morning  of  the  seventh, 
Grey,  who  had  wandered  from  his  friends,  was  seized  by  two  of 
the  Sussex  scouts.  He  submitted  to  his  fate  with  the  calmness 
of  ono  to  whom  suspense  was  more  intolerable  than  despair. 
"  Since  we  landed,"  he  said,  "  I  have  not  had  one  comfortable 
meal  or  one  quiet  night."  It  could  hardly  be  doubted  that  the 
chief  rebel  was  not  far  off.  The  pursuers  redoubled  their  vigi- 
lance and  activity.  The  cottages  scattered  over  the  heathy 
country  on  the  boundaries  of  Dorsetshire  and  Hampshire  were 
strictly  examined  by  Lumley  ;  and  the  clown  with  whom  Mon- 
mouth had  changed  clothes  was  discovered.  Portman  came 
with  a  strong  body  of  horse  and  foot  to  assist  in  the  search. 
Attention  was  soon  drawn  to  a  place  well  fitted  to  shelter  fugi- 
tives. It  was  an  extensive  tract  of  land  separated  by  an  en- 
closure, from  the  open  country,  and  divided  by  numerous  hedges 
into  small  fields.     In  some  of  these  fields  the  rye,  the  pease, 

*  Aubrey's  Natural  History  of  Wiltshire,  1691. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  0D3 

and  the  oats  were  hi<jli  enonsrli  to  conceal  a  man.  Others  were 
overgrown  with  fern  and  brambles.  A  poor  woman  reported 
that  she  had  seen  two  strangers  lurking  in  this  covert.  Tha 
near  prospect  of  reward  animated  the  zeal  of  the  troops.  It 
was  agreed  that  every  man  who  did  his  duty  in  the  search 
should  have  a  share  of  the  promised  five  thousand  pounds. 
The  outer  fence  was  strictly  guarded :  the  space  within  was 
examined  with  indefatigable  diligence;  and  several  dogs  of 
quick  scent  were  turned  out  among  the  bushes.  The  day  closed 
before  the  work  could  be  completed :  but  careful  watch  was 
kept  all  night.  Thirty  times  the  fugitives  ventured  to  look 
through  the  outer  hedge:  but  everywhere  they  found  a  sentinel 
on  the  alert :  once  they  were  seen  and  fired  at ;  they  then 
separated  and  concealed  them;  elves  in  different  hiding  places. 

At  sunrise  the  next  morning  the  search  recommenced,  and 
Buyse  W3,s  found.  He  owned  that  he  had  pa''ted  from  the 
Duke  only  a  few  hours  before.  The  corn  and  copsewood  were 
now  beaten  with  more  care  than  ever.  At  length  a  gaunt 
figure  was  discovered  hidden  in  a  ditch.  The  pursuers  sprang 
on  their  prey.  Some  of  them  were  about  to  fire :  but  Port- 
man  forbade  all  violence.  The  prisoner's  dress  was  that  of  a 
shepherd  ;  his  beard,  prematurely  grey,  was  of  several  days' 
growth.  He  trembled  greatly,  and  was  unable  to  speak.  Even 
those  who  had  often  seen  him  wore  at  first  in  doubt  whether 
this  were  truly  the  brilliant  and  graceful  Monmouth.  His 
pockets  were  searched  by  Portman,  and  in  them  were  found, 
among  some  raw  pease  gathered  in  the  rage  of  hunger,  a  watch, 
a  purse  of  gold,  a  small  treatise  on  fortification,  an  album  filled 
R'ith  songs,  receipts,  prayers,  and  charms,  and  the  George  with 
whicli,  many  years  before,  King  Charles  the  Second  had  decor- 
ated his  favourite  son.  Messengers  were  instantly  despatched 
to  Whitehall  with  the  good  news,  and  with  the  George  as  a 
token  that  the  news  was  true.  The  prisoner  was  conveyed 
under  a  strong  guard  to  Ringwood.* 

*  Account  of  the  manner  of  taking  tlie  late  Duke  of  Monraoutli,  published  by 
bis  Majesty's  command;  Gazette  ile  France,  July  18-28,  1G85  ;  Eachard,  jii.  710  J 
Buniet,  i.  C64,aua  Dartmouthe   note  :  Vaw  Citters,  July  10-20, 1685- 


554  IIISIORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

And  all  was  lost ;  and  nothing  remained  but  that  he  should 
prepare  to  meet  death  as  became  one  who  had  thought  him- 
self not  unworthy  to  wear  the  crown  of  William  the  Conqueror 
and  of  Richard  the  Lionhearted,  of  the  hero  of  Cressy  and  of 
the  hero  of  Agincourt.  The  captive  might  easily  have  called 
to  mind  other  domestic  examples,  still  better  suited  to  his 
condition.  Within  a  hundred  years,  two  sovereigns  whose 
blood  ran  in  his  veins,  one  of  them  a  delicate  woman,  had 
been  placed  in  the  same  situation  in  which  he  now  stood.  They 
had  shown,  in  the  prison  and  on  the  scaffold,  virtue  of  which, 
in  the  season  of  jirosperity,  they  had  seemed  incapable,  and  had 
half  redeemed  great  crimes  and  errors  by  enduring  with  Chris- 
tian meel<ness  and  princely  dignity  all  that  victorious  enemies 
could  inflict.  Of  cowardice  Monmouth  had  never  been  accused  ; 
and,  even  had  he  been  wanting  in  constitutional  courage,  it 
might  have  been  expected  that  the  defect  would  be  supplied  by 
pride  and  by  despair.  The  eyes  of  the  whole  world  were  upon 
him.  The  latest  generations  would  know  how,  in  that  extremi- 
ty, he  had  borne  himself.  To  the  brave  peasants  of  the  West 
he  owed  it  to  show  that  they  had  not  poured  forth  their  blood 
for  a  leader  unworthy  of  their  attachment.  To  her  who  had 
sacrificed  everything  for  his  sake  he  owed  it  so  to  bear  himself 
that,  though  she  might  weep  for  him,  she  should  not  blush  for 
him.  It  was  not  for  him  to  lament  and  supplicate.  His  reason, 
too,  should  have  told  hira  that  lamentation  and  supplication 
would  be  unavailing.  He  had  done  that  which  could  never  be 
forgiven.      He  was  in  the  grasp  of  one  who  never  forgave. 

But  the  fortitude  of  Monmouth  was  not  that  highest  sort  of 
fortitude  which  is  derived  from  reflection  and  from  selfrespect ; 
nor  had  nature  given  him  one  of  those  stout  hearts  from  which 
neither  adversity  nor  peril  can  extort  any  sign  of  weakness. 
His  courage  rose  and  fell  with  his  animal  spirits.  It  was  sus- 
tained on  the  field  of  battle  by  the  excitement  of  action.  By  the 
hope  of  victory,  by  the  strange  influence  of  sympathy.  All^ 
such  aids  were  now  taken  away.  The  spoiled  darling  of  the 
court  and  of  the  populace,  accustomed  to  be  loved  and  wor- 
shipped whej-ever  he    appeared,  was  now   surrounded   by  stern 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  355 

gaolers  in  whose  eyes  he  read  his  doom.  Yet  a  few  hours  of 
gloomy  seclusion,  and  he  must  die  a  violent  and  sliameful  death. 
His  heart  sank  within  him.  Life  seemed  worth  purchasing  by 
any  humiliation  ;  nor  could  his  mind,  always  feeble,  and  now 
distracted  by  terror,  perceive  that  humiliation  must  degrade,  but 
could  not  save  him. 

As  soon  as  he  reached  Ringwood  he  wrote  to  the  Kirig. 
The  letter  was  that  of  a  man  whom  a  craven  fear  had  made  in- 
sensible to  shame.  He  professed  in  vehement  terms  his  remorse 
for  his  treason.  He  affirmed  that,  when  he  promised  his 
cousins  at  the  Hague  not  to  raise  troubles  in  England,  he  had 
fully  meant  to  keep  his  word.  Unhappily  he  had  afterwards 
been  seduced  from  his  allegiance  by  some  horrid  people  who 
had  heated  his  mind  by  calumnies  and  misled  him  by  sophistry ; 
but  now  he  abhorred  them  :  he  abhorred  himself.  He  begged 
in  piteous  terms  that  he  might  be  admitted  to  the  royal  pres- 
ence. There  was  a  secret  which  he  could  not  trust  to  paper, 
a  secret  which  lay  in  a  single  word,  and  which,  if  he  spoke  that 
word,  would  secure  the  throne  against  all  danger.  On  the  fol- 
lowing day  he  despatched  letters,  imploring  the  Queen  Dowager 
and  the  Lord  Treasurer  to  intercede  in  his  behalf.* 

AVhen  it  was  known  in  London  how  he  had  abased  himself 
the  general  surprise  was  great ;  and  no  man  was  more  amazed 
than  Barillon,  who  had  resided  in  P^ngland  during  two  bloody 
proscriptions,  and  had  seen  numerous  victims,  both  of  the  Oppo- 
sition and  of  the  Court,  submit  to  their  fate  without  womanish 
entreaties  and  lamentations. f 

Monmouth  and  Grey  remained  at  Ringwood  two  days. 
They  were  then  carried  up  to  London,  under  the  guard  of  a 
large  body  of  regular  troops  and  militia.  In  the  coach  with  the 
Duke  was  an  officer  whose  orders  were  to  stab  the  prisoner  if 
a  rescue  were  attempted.  At  every  town  along  the  road  the 
trainbands  of  the  neighbourhood  had  been  mustered  under  the 

*  The  letter  to  the  King  was  printed  at  tlie  time  by  authority  ;  that  to  the 
Queen  l)owa:,'er  will  he  found  in  Sir  H.  Kllis's  Original  Letters  ;  that  to  Roches- 
ter in  the  Clarendon  Correspondeuf  e. 

t  "Oil  troiive,"  he  wrote,  "  fort  &,  redire  icy  qu'il  ay  t  fait  une  chose  si  pen  oi> 
dinalre  aux  Anghus."    July  14-23,  ](>".. 


556  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

command  of  the  principal  gentry.  The  march  lasted  three  days, 
and  terminated  at  VauxluiH,  where  a  regiment,  commanded  by 
George  Legge,  Lord  Dartmouth,  was  in  readiness  to  receive  the 
prisoners.  They  were  put  on  board  of  a  state  barge,  and  carried 
down  the  river  to  AVhitehall  Stairs.  Luuiley  and  Portman  had 
alternately  watched  the  Duke  day  and  night  till  tliey  had  brought 
him  within  the  walls  of  the  palace.* 

Both  the  demeanour  of  Monmouth  and  that  of  Grey,  during 
the  journey,  filled  all  observers  with  surprise.  Monmouth  was 
altogether  umierved.  Grey  was  not  only  calm  but  cheerful, 
talked  pleasantly  of  horses,  dogs,  and  field  sports,  and  even 
made  jocose  allusions  to  the  perilous  situation  in  which  he  stood. 

The  King  cannot  be  blamed  for  determining  that  Monmouth 
should  suffer  death.  Every  Uian  who  heads  a  rebellion  against 
an  established  government  stakes  his  life  on  the  event ;  and 
rebellion  was  the  smallest  part  of  Monmouth's  crime.  He  had 
declared  against  his  uncle  a  war  without  quarter.  In  the  mani- 
festo put  forth  at  Lyme,  James  had  been  held  up  to  execration 
as  an  incendiary,  as  an  assassin  who  had  strangled  one  innocent 
man  and  cut  the  throat  of  another,  and,  lastly,  as  the  poisoner 
of  his  own  brother.  To  spare  an  enemy  who  had  not  scrupled 
to  resort  to  such  extremities  would  have  been  an  act  of  rare, 
perhaps  of  blamable  generosit\\  But  to  see  him  and  not  to 
spare  him  was  an  outrage  on  humanity  and  decency. f  This 
outrage  the  King  resolved  to  commit.  The  arms  of  the  prisoner 
were  bound  behind  him  with  a  silken  cord  ;  and,  thus  secured, 
he  was  ushered  into  the  presence  of  the  implacable  kinsman 
whom  he  had  wronged. 

Then  Monmouth  threw  himself  on  the  ground,  and  crawled 
to  the  King's  feet.  He  wept.  He  tried  to  embrace  his  uncle's 
knees  with  his  pinioned  arms.  He  begged  for  life,  only  life, 
life  at  any  price.  He  owned  that  he  had  been  guilty  of  a  great 
crime,  but  tried  to  throw  the  blame   on   others,  particularly  on 

*  Account  of  the  manner  of  taking  the  Duke  of  Monmouth  ;  Gazette,  July  16, 
1685  ;  Van  Citters,  .July  14-24. 

t  Barillon  was  evidently  much  shocked.  "  III  se  vient,"  he  says,  "de  passer 
icy,  une  cliose  Wen  extraordinaire  et  fort  opposee  k  I'usage  ordinaire  des  autres 
nations,"  IS-2.S.  1685. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  557 

Argyle,  who  would  rather  have  put  his  legs  into  the  boots  than 
have  saved  his  own  life  by  such  baseness.   By  the  ties  of  kindred. 
by  the  memory  of  the  late  King,  who   had  been   the  best  and 
truest  of  brothei's,  the   unhappy   man   adjured   James   to  show 
some  mercy.     James  gravely  replied  that   tliis   repentance  was 
of  the  latest,  that  he  was  sorry  for  the  misery  which  the  prison. 
er  had  brought  on   himself,  but  that  the  case  was   not  one   for 
lenity.       A    Declaration,   filled  with    atrocious    calumnies,  liad 
been  put  forth.     The  regal  title  had  been  assumed.     For  trea- 
sons so  aggravated  there  could  be  no  pardon  on  this  side  of  the 
grave.     The  poor  terrified  Duke  vowed  that  he  had  never  wish- 
ed to  take  the  crown,  but  had  been  led  into   that  fatal  error  by 
others.     As  to  the  Declaration,  he   had  not  written  it :  he  had 
not  read  it :  he  had  signed   it  without  looking  at  it :  it   was  all 
the  work  of  Ferguson,  that  bloody  villain  Fei-guson.     "  Do  you 
expect  me  to  believe,"  said  James,  with  contempt  but   too  well 
merited,  "  that  you  set  your  hand  to  a  paper  of  such  moment 
without  knowing  what  it   contained  ?  "      One   depth   of  infamy 
only  remained  ;  and  even  to  that  the  prisoner  descended.     He 
was    preeminently    the    champion   of  the   Protestant    religion. 
The  interest  of  that  religion  had  been    his  plea  for  conspiring 
against  the    government  of  his  father,  and  for  bringing  on    his 
country  the  miseries  of  civil  war  ;  yet  he  was   not  ashamed   to 
hint  that  he  was   inclined   to  be  reconciled   to   the   Church  of 
Rome.     The  King  eagerly  offered  him  spiritual  assistance,  but 
said  nothing  of   pardon   or  respite,     "  Is  there  then  no  hope  ?  " 
asked  Monmouth.     James  turned  away  in  silence.    Then  Mon- 
mouth strove  to  rally  his  courage,  rose  from  his  knees,  and  retired 
with  a  firmness  which  he  had  not  shown  since  his  overthrow.* 

Grey  was  introduced  next.  He  behaved  with  a  propriety 
and  fortitude  which  moved  even  the  stern  and  resentful  King, 
frankly  owned  himself  guilty,  made  no  excuses,  and  did  not 
once  stoop  to  ask  his  life.  Both  the  pi;isoners  were  sent  to  the 
Tower  by  water.     There  was  no  tumult ;  but  many  thousands 

*  Burnet,  i.  644  ;  Evelyn's  Diary,  July  15  ;  Sir  J.  Bramston's  Memoirs  ; 
Reresby's  Memoirs  ;  James  to  the  Prince  of  Orange,  July  14,  1685 ;  Barillon, 
July  16-26  ;  Buccleucli  MS. 


538  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

of  people,  witQ  anxiety  and  sorrow  in  their  faces,  tried  to  catch 
a  glimpse  of  the  captives.  The  Duke's  resolution  failed  as 
soon  as  he  had  left  the  royal  presence.  On  his  way  to  his  pris- 
on he  bemoaned  himself,  accused  liis  followers,  and  abjectly  im- 
plored the  intercession  of  Dartmouth.  "  I  know,  my  Lord, 
that  you  loved  my  father.  For  his  sake,  for  God's  sake,  try  if 
there  be  any  room  for  mercy."  Dartmouth  replied  that  the 
King  had  spoken  the  truth,  and  that  a  subject  who  assumed  the 
regal  title  excluded  himself  from  all  hope  of  pardon.* 

Soon  after  Monmouth  had  been  lodged  in  the  Tower,  he 
was  informed  that  his  wife  had,  by  the  royal  command,  been 
sent  to  see  him.  She  was  accompanied  by  the  Earl  of  Claren- 
don, Keeper  of  the  Privy  Seal.  Her  husband  received  her  very 
coldly,  and  addressed  almost  all  his  discourse  to  Clarendon, 
whose  intercession  he  earnestly  implored.  Clarendon  held  out 
no  hopes ;  and  that  same  evening  two  prelates.  Turner,  Bishop 
of  Ely,  and  Ken,  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells,  arrived  at  the 
Tower  with  a  solemn  message  from  the  King.  It  was  Monday 
night.     On  Wednesday  morning  Monmoutli  was  to  die. 

He  was  greatly  agitated.  The  blood  left  his  cheeks  ;  and 
it  was  some  time  before  he  could  speak.  Most  of  the  short 
time  which  remained  to  him  he  wasted  in  vain  attempts  to  ob- 
tain, if  not  a  pai-don,  at  least  a  respite.  He  wrote  piteous  letters 
to  the  King  and  to  several  courtiers,  but  in  vain.  Some  Roman 
Catholic  divines  were  sent  to  him  from  Whitehall.  But  they 
soon  discovered  that,  though  he  would  gladly  have  purchased 
his  life  by  renouncing  the  religion  of  which  he  had  professed 
himself  in  an  especial  manner  the  defender,  yet,  if  he  was  to 
die,  he  would  as  soon  die  without  their  absolution  as  with  it.f 


*  James  to  the  Prince  of  Orange,  July  14,  1685 ;  Dutch  Despatch  of  the  same 
date  ;  Dartmouth's  note  on  Burnet,  i.  64C  ;  Narcissus  Luttrell's  Diary,  (1848)  a  copy 
of  this  diary,  from  July  1685  to  Sept.  1690,  is  among  the  Mackintosh  papers.  To 
the  rest  I  was  allowed  access  l»y  the  kindness  of  the  Warden  of  All  Souls'  College, 
where  the  original  MS.  is  deposited.  The  delegates  of  the  Press  of  the  University 
of  Oxford  have  since  published  the  whole  in  six  substantial  volumes,  which  will, 
I  am  afraid,  find  little  favour  with  readers  who  seek  only  for  amusement,  but  whicb 
will  always  be  useful  as  materials  for  history.  (1857.) 

t  Buccleuch  MS  ;  Life  of  James  the  Second,  ii.  37,  Grig.  Mem. ;  Van  Cltters, 
July  14-24, 1685  i  Gazette  de  France,  August  1-11. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  559 

Nor  were  Ken  and  Turner  much  better  pleased  with  his 
frame  of  mind.  The  doctrhie  of  nonresistance  was,  in  tlieir 
view,  as  in  the  view  of  most  of  their  brethren,  tlie  distinguishing 
badge  of  the  Anglican  Church.  The  two  Bishops  insisted  on 
Monmouth's  owning  that,  in  drawing  the  sword  against  the 
government,  lie  had  committed  a  great  sin  ;  and,  on  this  point,  they 
found  him  obstinately  heterodox.  Nor  was  this  his  only  heresy. 
He  maintained  that  his  connection  with  Lady  Wentworth  was 
blameless  in  the  sight  of  God.  He  had  been  married,  he  said,  when 
a  child.  He  had  never  cared  for  his  Duchess.  The  happiness 
which  he  had  not  found  at  home  he  had  sought  in  a  round  of 
loose  amours,  condemned  by  religion  and  morality.  Henrietta 
had  reclaimed  him  from  a  life  of  vice.  To  her  he  had  been 
strictly  constant.  They  had,  by  common  consent,  offered  up  fer- 
vent prayers  for  the  divine  guidance.  After  those  prayers  they 
had  found  their  affection  for  each  other  strengthened  ;  and  they 
could  then  no  longer  doubt  that,  in  the  sight  of  God,  they  were  a 
wedded  pair.  The  Bishops  were  so  much  scandalised  by  this 
view  of  the  conjugal  relation  that  they  refused  to  administer 
the  sacrament  to  the  prisoner.  All  that  they  could  obtain  from 
him  was  a  promise  that,  during  the  single  night  which  still  re- 
mained to  him,  he  would  pray  to  be  enlightened  if  he  were  in 
error; 

On  the  Wednesday  morning,  at  his  particular  request,  Doctor 
Thomas  Tenison,  who  then  held  the  vicarage  of  Saint  Martin's, 
and,  in  that  important  cure,  had  obtained  the  high  esteem  of  the 
public,  came  to  the  Tower.  From  Tenison,  whose  opinions 
were  known  to  be  moderate,  the  Duke  expected  more  indulgence 
than  Ken  and  Turner  were  disposed  to  show.  But  Tenison, 
whatever  might  be  his  sentiments  concerning  nonresistance  in 
the  abstract,  thouglit  the  late  rebellion  rash  and  wicked,  and 
considered  Monmouth's  notion  respecting  marriage  as  a  most 
dangerous  delusion.  Monmouth  was  obstinate.  He  had  pray- 
ed, he  said,  for  the  divine  direction.  His  sentiments  remained 
unchanged  ;  and  he  could  not  doubt  that  they  were  correct. 
Tenison's  exhortations  were  in  milder  tone  than  those  of  the 
Bishops.      But  he,  like  them,  thought  that  he^hould  not  be 


•560  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

justified  in  udministering  the  Eucharist  to  one  whose  penitenCS 
was  of  so  unsatisfactory  a  nature.* 

The  hour  drew  near :  all  hope  was  over  ;  and  Monmouth 
had  passed  from  pusillanimous  fear  to  the  apathy  of  despair. 
His  children  were  brought  to  his  room  that  he  might  take  leave 
of  tli^m,  and  were  followed  by  his  wife.  He  ppoke  to  her 
kindly,  but  without  emotion.  Though  she  was  a  woman  of  great 
strength  of  mind,  and  had  little  cause  to  love  him,  her  misery 
was  such  that  none  of  the  bystanders  could  refrain  from  weep- 
ing.    He  alone  was  unnioved.f 

It  was  ten  o'clock.  The  coach  of  the  Lieutenant  of  the 
Tower  was  ready.  Monmouth  requested  his  spiritual  advisers 
to  accompany  him  to  the  place  of  execution  ;  and  they 
consented  :  but  they  told  him  that,  in  their  judgment,  he  waa 
about  to  die  in  a  perilous  state  of  mind,  and  that,  if  they  at' 
tended  him  it  would  be  their  duty  to  exhort  him  to  the 
last.  As  he  passed  along  the  ranks  of  the  guards  he  saluted 
them  with  a  smile  ;  and  he  mounted  the  scaffold  with  a  firm 
tread.  Tower  Hill  was  covered  up  to  the  chimney  tops  with 
an  innumerable  multitude  of  gazers,  who,  in  awful  silence, 
broken  only  by  sighs  and  the  noise  of  weeping,  listened  for 
the  last  accents  of  the  darling  of  the  people.  ''  I  shall  say 
little,"  he  began.  "  I  come  here,  not  to  speak,  but  to  die.  I 
die  a  Protestant  of  the  Church  of  England."  The  Bishops 
interrupted  him,  and  told  him  that,  unless  he  acknowledged 
resistance  to  be  sinful,  he  was  no  member  of  their  church. 
He  went  on  to  speak  of  his  Henrietta.  She  was,  he  said,  a 
young  lady  of  virtue  and  honour.  He  loved  her  to  the  last, 
and  he  could  not  die  without  giving  utterance  to  his  feelings. 
The  Bishops  again  interfered,  and  begged  him  not  to  use  such 
taneuao'e.  Some  altercation  followed.  The  divines  have  been 
accused  of  dealing  harshly  with  the  dying  man.  But  they 
appear  to  have  only  discharged  what,  in  their  view,  was  a 
eacred  duty.  Monmouth  knew  their  principles,  and,  if  he 
lyished  to  avoid  their  importunity,  should  have  dispensed  with 

■:.     *  Biiccleucli  MS.;  Life  of  James  the  Second,  ii.  37,  38,  Grig.  Mem.;  Bumet,  i. 
"-•^  ;  Tenison's  aetount  in  Kennet,  iii.  432,  ed.  1719.  t  Buccleuch  MS 


JAME3   THE    SECOND.        .  561 

their  attendance.  Their  general  arguments  against  resistance 
had  no  effect  on  him.  But  when  they  reminded  him  of  the 
ruin  which  he  had  brought  on  his  brave  and  loving  followers, 
of  the  blood  which  had  been  shed,  of  the  souls  which  had  been 
sent  unprepared  to  the  great  account,  he  was  touclied,  and  said, 
in  a  softened  voice,  "  I  do  own  that.  I  am  sorry  that  it  ever 
happened."  They  prayed  with  him  long  and  fervently  ;  and  he 
joined  in  their  petitions  till  they  invoked  a  blessing  on  the 
King.  He  remained  silent.  "  Sir,"  said  one  of  the  Bishops, 
"do  you  not  pray  for  the  King  with  us  ?  "  Monmouth  paused 
some  time,  and,  after  an  internal  struggle,  exclaimed  "  Amen." 
But  it  was  in  vain  that  the  prelates  implored  him  to  address  to  the 
soldiers  and  to  the  people  a  few  words  on  the  duty  of  obedience 
to  the  government.  "I will  make  no  speeches,"  he  exclaimed. 
"  Only  ten  words,  my  Lord."  He  turned  away,  called  his 
servant,  and  put  into  the  man's  hand  a  toothpick  case,  the  last 
token  of  ill  starred  love.  "Give  it,"  he  said,  "  to  that  person." 
He  then  accosted  John  Ketch  the  executioner,  a  wretch  who 
had  butchered  many  brave  and  noble  victims,  and  whose  name 
has,  during  a  century  and  a  half,  been  vulgarly  given  to  all  who 
have  succeeded  liir.i  in  his  odious  office.*  "  Here,"  said  the 
Duke,  "  are  six  guineas  for  you.  Do  not  hack  me  as  you  did 
my  Lord  Russell.  I  have  heard  that  you  struck  him  three  or 
four  times.  My  servant  will  give  you  some  more  gold  if  you 
do  the  work  well."  He  then  undressed,  felt  the  edge  of  the 
axe,  expressed  some  fear  that  it  was  not  sharp  enough,  and 
laid  his  head  on  the  block.  The  divines  in  the  meantime  con- 
tinued to  ejaculate  with  great  energy :  "  God  accept  your  re- 
pentance !  God  accept  your  imperfect  repentance  !  " 

The  hangman  addressed  himself  to   his  office.     But  he  had 
been  disconcerted  by  what  the  Duke  had   said.     The  first  blow 

*  The  name  of  Ketch  was  often  associated  with  that  of  Jeffreys  in  the  lampoons 

jf  those  days. 

"  While  Jeffreys  on  the  bench,  Ketch  on  the  gibbet  sits," 

isays  one  poet.  In  the  year  which  followed  Monmouth's  execution  Ketch  was 
turned  out  of  his  office  for  insulting  one  of  the  Sheriffs,  and  was  succeeded  by 
a  butcher  named  Rose.  But  in  four  months  Rose  himself  was  hanged  at  Tybum, 
and  Ketch  was  reinstated.  Lnttrell's  Diary,  January  20,  and  May  28, 1686.  See 
a  curious  note  by  Dr.  Grey,  on  Hudibras.  part  iii.  canto  ii.  line  1534. 

36 


562  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

inflicted  only  a  slight  wound.  The  Duke  struggled,  rose  from 
the  block,  and  looked  reproachfully  at  the  executioner.  The 
head  sunk  down  once  more.  The  stroke  was  repeated  again  and 
again  ;  but  still  the  neck  was  not  severed,  and  the  body  continued 
to  move.  Yells  of  rage  and  horror  rose  from  the  crowd.  Ketch 
flung  down  the  axe  with  a  curse.  "  1  cannot  do  it,"  he  said  ;  "  my 
heart  fails  me."  "  Take  up  the  axe,  man,"  cried  the  sheriff.  "  Fling 
him  over  the  rails,"  roared  the  mob.  At  length  the  axe  was  taken 
up.  Two  more  blows  extinguished  the  last  remains  of  life  ;  but  a 
knife  was  used  to  separate  the  head  from  the  shoulders.  The 
crowd  was  wrought  up  to  such  an  ecstasy  of  rage  tliat  the  exe- 
cutioner was  in  danger  of  being  torn  in  pieces,  and  was  con- 
veyed away  under  a  strong  guard.* 

In  the  meantime  many  handkerchiefs  were  dipped  in  the 
Duke's  blood  ;  for  by  a  large  part  of  the  multitude  he  was 
regarded  as  a  martyr  who  had  died  for  the  Protestant  religion. 
The  head  and  body  were  placed  in  a  coffin  covered  with  black 
velvet,  and  were  laid  privately  under  the  communion  table  of 
Saint  Peter's  Chapel  in  the  Tower.  Within  four  years  the 
pavement  of  the  chancel  was  again  disturbed,  and  hard  by  the 
remains  of  Monmouth  were  laid  the  remains  of  Jeffreys.  In 
truth  there  is  no  sadder  spot  on  the  earth  than  that  little  ceme- 
tery. Death  is  there  associated,  not,  as  in  Westminster  Abbey 
and  St.  Paul's,  with  genius  and  virtue,  with  public  veneration 
and  imperishable  renown ;  not,  as  in  our  humblest  churches 
and  churchyards,  with  everything  that  is  most  endearing  in 
social  and  domestic  charities  ;  but  with  whatever  is  darkest  in 
human  nature  and  in  human  destiny,  with  the  savage  triumph 
of  implacable  enemies,  with  the  inconstancy,  the  ingratitude, 
the  cowardice  of  friends,  with  all  the  miseries  of  fallen  great- 
ness and  of  blighted  fame.  Thither  have  been  carried,  through 
successive  ages,  by  the  rude  hands  of  gaolers,  without  one  mourn- 
er following,  the  bleeding  relics  of  men  who  had  been  the 
captains    of     armies,    the   leaders    of    parties,    the    oracles   of 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  563 

senates,  and  tne  ornaments  of  courts.  Thither  was  borne, 
before  the  window  where  Jane  Grey  was  praying,  the  man- 
gled corpse  of  Guilford  Dudley.  Edward  Seymour,  Duke  of 
Somerset,  and  Protector  of  the  realm,  reposes  there  by  the 
brother  wliom  he  murdered.  There  has  mouldered  away  the 
headless  trunk  of  John  Fisher,  Bishop  of  Rochester  and  Car- 
dinal of  Saint  Vitalis,  a  man  worthy  to  have  lived  in  a  better 
age  and  to  have  died  in  a  better  cause.  There  are  laid  John 
Dudley,  Duke  of  Northumberland,  Lord  High  Admiral,  and 
Thomas  Cromwell,  Earl  of  Essex,  Lord  High  Treasurer. 
There,  too,  is  another  Essex,  on  whom  nature  and  fortune  had 
lavished  all  their  bounties  in  vain,  and  whom  valour,  grace, 
genius,  royal  favour,  popular  applause,  conducted  to  an  early 
and  ignominious  doom.  Not  far  off  sleep  two  chiefs  of  the 
great  house  of  Howard,  Thomas,  fourth  Duke  of  Norfolk,  and 
Philip,  eleventh  Earl  of  Arundel.  Here  and  there,  among  the 
thick  graves  of  unquiet  and  aspiring  statesmen,  lie  more  delicate 
fufferers;  Margaret  of  Salisbury,  the  last  of  the  proud  name  oi 
Plantagenet ;  and  those  two  fair  Queens  who  perished  by  the 
jealous  rage  of  Henry.  Such  was  the  dus!;  with  which  the  dust 
of  Monmouth  mingled.* 

Yet  a  few  months,  and  the  quiet  village  of  Toddington,  in 
Bedfordshiie,  witnessed  a  still  sadder  funeral.  Near  that  vil- 
lage stood  an  ancient  and  stately  hall,  the  seat  of  the  Went- 
worths.  The  transept  of  the  parish  church  had  long  been  their 
burial  place.  To  that  burial  place,  in  the  spring  which  followed 
the  death  of  Monmouth,  was  borne  the  cofrin  of  the  young  Bar- 
oness Wentworth  of  Nettlestede.  Her  family  reared  a  sump- 
tuous mausoleum  over  her  remains  :  but  a  less  costly  memorial 
of  her  was  long  contemplated  with  far  deeper  interest.  Her 
name,  carved  by  the  hand  of  him  whom  she  loved  too  well, 
was,  a  few  years  ago,  still  discernible  on  a  tree  in  the  adjoining 
park. 

It  was  not  by  Lady  Wentworth  alone  that  the  memory  of 

*  I  cannot  refrain  from  expressing  my  disgust  at  the  barbarous  stupidity  which 
has  transformed  this  most  interesting  little  church  into  the  likeness  of  a  meeting- 
house ill  a  manufacturing  town. 


564  HISTORY    OP    ENCfLAND, 

Monmouth  was  cherished  with  idolatrous  fondness.  His  hold 
on  the  hearts  of  the  people  lasted  till  the  generation  which  had 
seen  him  had  passed  away.  Ribands,  buckles,  and  other  trifling 
articles  of  apparel  which  he  had  worn,  were  treasured  np  as 
precious  relics  by  those  who  had  fought  under  him  at  Sedge- 
moor.  Old  men  who  long  survived  him  desired,  when  they 
Were  dying,  that  these  trinkets  might  be  buried  with  them. 
One  button  of  gold  thread  which  narrowly  escaped  this  fate  may 
still  be  seen  at  a  house  which  overlooks  the  field  of  battle. 
Nay.  such  was  the  devotion^  of  the  people  to  their  unhappy 
favourite  that,  in  the  face  of  the  strongest  evidence  by  which 
the  fact  of  a  death  was  ever  verified,  many  continued  to  cherish 
a  hope  that  he  was  still  living,  and  that  he  would  again  appear 
in  arms.  A  person,  it  was  said,  who  was  remarkably  like  Mon- 
mouth, had  sacrificed  himself  to  save  the  Protestant  hero.  The 
vulgar  long  continued,  at  every  important  crisis,  to  whisper 
that  the  time  was  at  hand,  and  that  King  Monmouth  would  soon 
show  himself.  In  1686,  a  knave  who  had  pretended  to  be  the 
Duke,  and  had  levied  contributions  in  several  villages  of  Wilt- 
shire, was  apprehended,  and  whipped  from  Newgate  to  Tyburn. 
In  169-^,  when  England  had  long  enjoyed  constitutional  freedom 
under  a  new  dynast}^,  the  son  of  an  innkeeper  passed  himself  on 
the  yeomanry  of  Sussex  as  their  beloved  Monmouth,  and  de 
frauded  many  who  were  by  no  means  of  the  lowest  class.  Five 
hundred  pounds  were  collected  for  him.  The  farmers  provided 
him  with  a  horse.  Their  wives  sent  him  baskets  of  chickens 
and  ducks,  and  were  lavish,  it  was  said,  of  favours  of  a  more 
tender  kind  ;  for  in  gallantry  at  least,  the  counterfeit  was  a  not 
unwortliy  representative  of  the  original.  When  this  impostor 
was  thrown  into  prison  for  his  fraud,  his  followers  maintained 
him  in  luxury.  Several  of  them  appeared  at  the  bar  to  coun- 
tenance him  when  he  was  tried  at  the  Horsham  assizes.  So 
long  did  this  delusion  last  that,  when  George  the  Third  had 
been  some  years  on  the  English  throne,  Voltaire  thought  it 
necessary  gravely  to  confute  the  hypothesis  that  the  man  in  the 
>ron  mask  was  the  Duke  of  Monmouth,* 

*Ob8ervator.  August  1, 1685;  y^  mHum 


^AMES    THK    SECOND.  563 

It  is,  perhaps,  a  fact  scarcely  less  remarkable  that,  to  this 
day,  the  inhabitants  of  some  ])arts  of  the  West  of  Eng- 
land, when  any  bill  affecting  tlicir  interest  is  before  the 
House  of  Lords,  think  themselves  entitled  to  claim  the  help  of 
the  Duke  of  Bucclcuch,  the  descendant  of  the  unfortunate  leader 
for  whom  their  ancestors  bled. 

The  history  of  Monmouth  would  alone  suffice  to  refute  the 
imputation   of   inconstancy  which    is  so    frequently  thrown  on 
the  common  people.     The   common  people   are  sometimes  in- 
constant ;  for   they  are   human  beings.      But  that  they  are  in- 
constant  as  compared  with  the   educated  classes,  with  aristoc- 
racies, or  with  princes,  may  be  confidently  denied.     It  would 
be  easy  to    name  demagogues  whose  popularity  has  remained 
undiminiidied  v/hile  sovereigns  and  parliaments  have  withdrawn 
their  coniidence  from  a  long  succession  of  statesmen.     When 
Swift  had  survived  his  faculties  many  years,  the  Irish  populace 
still  continued  to  light  bonfires  on  his  birthday,  in  commemora- 
tion of  the  services  which  they  fancied  that  he  had  rendered  to 
his  country  when  his  mind  was  in  full  vigour.     "While  seven 
administrations  were  raised  to  power  and  hurled  from  it  in 
consequence  of  court  intrigues  or  of  changes  in  the  sentiments 
of  the  higher  classes  of  society,  the   profligate  Wilkes  retained 
his  hold -on   the  affections  of  a  rabble  wliom  he  pillaged  and 
ridiculed.     Politicians,  who,  in  1807,  liad  sought  to  curry  favour 

phrey  W -.nley,  dated  Aug.  25,  IG98,  in  Iho  Aubrey  Collection;  Voltaire,  Diet. 
Pliil.  Tiiere  are,  in  llic  Pepysiau  Colltretion,  several  ballads  written  after  Mon- 
mouth s  death  which  represent  liim  as  living,  and  predict  his  speedy  retura.  iwit 
give  two  epecimens. 

•*  Thoii;r'i  this  is  a  dismal  stor.v 

Of  the  fall  of  •  ly  design, 
Yet  1'-''  come  a;^a!n    ■  clory. 

If  Hive  till  cisIU;-mne> 
for  I'll  nave  a  etronger  army 

And  of  ;     raunitiou  store." 

n  5 

"  Then  shall  MouMOufa  In  hia  irInH«» 
Unto  nis  Knglisli  frien^' ;  appoon 
And    ill  ttifle  aU  :ucU  .'arlea 
ABare    --.iicd  everywhere- 

••  They'll  sjc  I  was  not  BO  C-graoea; 
lo  be  takeii  gathering  pease. 
Or  in  a  cocU  of  h:ry  iip  braidcdi 
■What  ctrang    etortc  s  now  are  the««  » * 


566  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

with  George  the  Tliird  by  defending  Caroline  of  Brunswick, 
were  not  ashamed,  in  1820,  to  curry  favour  with  George  the 
Fourth  by  persecuting  her.  But  in  1820,  as  in  1807,  the  whole 
body  of  working  men  was  fanatically  devoted  to  her  cause.  So 
it  was  with  Monmouth.  In  1G80,  he  had  been  adored  alike  by 
the  gentry  and  by  the  peasantry  of  the  West.  In  1G85  he 
came  again.  To  the  gentry  he  had  become  an  object  of  aver- 
sion :  but  by  the  peasantry  he  was  still  loved  with  a  love  strong 
as  death,  with  a  love  not  to  be  extinguished  by  misfortunes  or 
faults,  by  the  flight  from  Sedgemoor,  by  the  letter  from  Ring- 
wood,  or  by  the  tears  and  abject  supplications  at  Whitehall. 
The  charge  which  may  with  justice  be  brought  against  the 
common  people  is,  not  that  they  are  inconstant,  but  that  they 
almost  invariably  choose  their  favourite  so  ill  that  their  con- 
stancy is  a  vice  and  not  a  virtue. 

While  the  execution  of  ]\Ionmouth  occupied  the  thoughts  of 
the  Londoners,  the  counties  which  had  risen  against  the  govern- 
ment were  enduring  all  that  a  ferocious  soldiery  could  inflict. 
Feversham  had  been  summo::3d  to  the  court,  where  honours 
and  rewards  which  he  little  deserved  awaited  him.  lie  was 
made  a  Knight  of  the  Garter  and  Captain  of  the  first  and  most 
lucrative  troop  of  Life  Guards  :  but  Court  and  City  laughed  at 
his  military  exploits ;  and  the  wit  of  Buckingham  gave  forth 
its  last  feeble  flash  at  the  expense  of  the  general  who  had  won 
a  battle  in  bed.*  Feversham  left  in  command  at  Bridgewater 
Colonel  Percy  Kirke,  a  military  adventurer  whose  vices  had 
been  developed  by  the  worst  of  all  schools,  Tangier.  Kirke 
had  during  some  years  commanded  the  garrison  of  that  towi: 
and  had  been  constantly  employed  in  hostilities  against  tribea 
of  foreign  barbarians,  ignorant  of  the  laws  which  regulate  the 
warfare  of  civilized  and  Christian  nations.  Within  the  ram- 
parts of  his  fortress  he  was  a  despotic  prince.  The  only  check 
on  his  tyranny  was  the  fear  of  being  called  to  account  by  a 
distant  and  a  careless  government.  He  might  therefore  safely 
proceed  to  the  most  audacious  excesses  of  rapacity,  licentious- 
ness, and  cruelty.  He  lived  with  boundless  dissoluteness,  and 
*  London  Gazette,  August  3, 1685  ;  the  Rattle  of  Sedgemoor,  a  Farce. 


JAMES   THE    SECOND.  567 

procured  by  extortion  the  me^ns  of  indulgence.  No  goods 
could  be  sold  till  Kirke  had  had  the  refusal  of  them.  No  ques- 
tion of  right  could  be  decided  till  Kirke  had  been  bribed.  Once, 
merely  from  a  malignant  whiai,  he  staved  all  the  wine  in  a 
vintner's  cellar.  On  another  occasion  he  drove  all  the  Jews 
from  Tangier.  Two  of  them  he  sent  to  the  Spanish  Inquisition, 
ivhich  forthwith  burned  them.  Under  this  iron  domination 
icarce  a  complaint  was  heard ;  for  hatred  was  effectually  kept 
down  by  terror.  Two  persons  who  had  been  refractory  were 
found  murdered  ;  and  it  was  universally  believed  that  they  liad 
been  slain  by  Kirke's  order.  When  his  soldiers  displeased  him 
he  flogged  them  with  merciless  severity :  but  he  indemnified 
them  by  permitting  them  to  sleep  on  watch,  to  reel  drunk  about 
the  streets,  to  rob,  beat,  and  insult  the  merchants  and  the 
labourers. 

When  Tangier  was  abandoned,  Kirke  returned  to  England. 
He  still  continued  to  command  his  old  soldiers,  who  were 
desi'gnated  sometimes  as  the  First  Tangier  Regiment,  and  some- 
times as  Queen  Catharine's  Regmient,  As  they  had  been  levied 
for  the  purpose  of  waging  war  on  an  infidel  nation,  they  bore 
on  their  flag  a  Christian  emblem,  the  Paschal  Lamb.  In  allu- 
sion to  this  device,  and  with  a  bitterly  ironical  meaning,  these 
men,  the  rudest  and  most  ferocious  in  the  English  army,  were 
called  Kirke's  Lambs.  The  regiment,  now  the  second  of  the 
line,  still  retains  this  ancient  badge,  which  is  however  thrown 
into  the  shade  by  decorations  honourably  earned  in  Egypt,  in 
Spain,  and  in  the  heart  of  Asia.* 

Such  was  the  captain  and  such  the  soldiers  who  were  now 
let  loose  on  the  people  of  Somersetshire.  From  Bridgewater 
Kirke  marched  to  Taunton.  He  was  accompanied  by  two 
carts  filled  with  v/ounded  rebels  whose  gashes  had  not  been 
dressed,  and  by  a  long  drove  of  prisoners  on  foot,  who  were 
chained  two  and  two.  Several  of  these  he  hanged  as  soon  as 
he  reached  Taunton,  without  the  form  of  a  trial.  They  were 
not  suffered  even  to  take  leave  of  their  nearest  relations.     The 

*  Pepys's  Diary,  kept  at  Tangier ;  Historical  Reoordsof  th«  Second  or  Queen'* 
Boyal  Kegimeat  of  Foot. 


568  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

signpost  of  the  White  Hart  Inii  served  for  a  gallows.  It  is 
said  that  the  work  of  death  went  on  in  sight  of  the  windows 
where  the  officers  of  the  Tangier  regiment  were  carousing,  and 
that  at  every  health  a  wretch  was  turned  off.  When  the  legs 
of  the  dying  man  quivered  in  the  last  agony,  the  colonel  ordered 
the  drums  to  strike  up.  He  would  give  the  rebels,  he  said, 
music  to  their  dancing.  The  tradition  runs  that  one  of  the 
captives  was  not  even  allowed  the  indulgence  of  a  speedy  death. 
Twice  he  was  suspended  from  the  signpost,  and  twice  cut 
down.  Twice  he  was  asked  if  he  repented  of  his  treason  ;  and 
twice  he  replied  that,  if  the  thing  were  to  do  again,  he  would 
do  it.  Then  he  was  tied  up  for  the  last  time.  So  many  dead 
bodies  were  quartered  that  the  executioner  stood  ankle  deep  in 
blood.  He  was  assisted  by  a  poor  man  whose  loyalty  was  sus- 
pected, and  who  was  compelled  to  ransom  his  own  life  by  seeth- 
ing the  remains  of  his  friends  in  pitch.  The  peasant  who  had 
consented  to  perform  this  hideous  office  afterwards  returned  to 
his  plough.  But  a  mark  like  that  of  Cain  was  upon  him.  He 
was  known  through  his  village  bv  tlie  horrible  name  of  Tom 
Boilman.  The  rustics  loner  continued  to  relate  that,  thouorh  he 
had.  l)y  his  sinful  and  shameful  deed,  saved  himself  from  the 
vengeance  of  the  Lambs,  he  had  not  escaped  the  vengeance  of 
a  higher  power.  In  a  great  storm  he  fled  for  shelter  under  an 
oak,  and  was  there  struck  dead  by  lightning.* 

The  number  of  those  who  were  thus  butchered  cannot  now 
be  ascertained.  Nine  were  entered  in  the  parish  registers  of 
Taunton :  but  those  registers  contained  the  names  of  such  only 
as  had  Christian  burial.  Those  who  were  hanged  in  chains,  and 
those  whose  heads  and  limbs  were  sent  to  the  neighbouring 
villages,  must  have  been  much  more  numerous.  It  was  believed 
in  London,  at  the  time,  that  Kirke  put  a  hundred  captives  to 
death  during  the  week  which  followed  the  battle. f 

Cruelty,  however,  was  not  this  man's  only  passion.  He 
loved  money ;  and  was  no  novice  in  the   arts  of  extortion.     A 

♦  Bloody  Assizes  ;  Burnet,  i.  G47 ;   Lnttrell's  Diary,  Jtily  15,  1685  ;  Locke's 
Western  Rebellion  ;  Toulniiii's  Ilistoi  y  of  Taunton,  edited  by  Savage, 
t  Luttrell's  Diary,  July  15,  lt;85 ;  Toulmin's  Hist,  oi  Taunton. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND. 


569 


safe  conduct  might  be  bought  of  him  for  thirty  or  forty  pounds; 
and  such  a  safe  conduct,  though  of  no  value  in  law,  enabled  the 
purchaser  to  pass  the  post  of  the  Lambs  without  molestation,  to 
reach  a  seaport,  and  to  fly  to  a  foreign  country.  The  ships 
which  were  bound  for  New  England  were  crowded  at  this  junc- 
ture with  so  many  fugitives  from  Sedgemoor  that  there  was 
great  danger  lest  the  water  and  provisions  should  fail.* 

Kirke  was  also,  in  his  own  coarse  and  ferocious  way,  a  man 
of  pleasure;  and  nothing  is  more  probable  than  that  he  employ- 
ed his  power  for  the  purpose  of  gratifying  his  licentious  appe- 
tites. It  was  reported  that  he  conquered  the  virtue  of  a  beauti- 
ful woman  by  promising  to  spare  the  life  of  one  to  whom  she 
was  strongly  attached,  and  that,  after  she  had  yielded,  he  show- 
ed her  suspended  on  the  gallows  the  lifeless  remains  of  him  for 
whose  sake  she  had  sacrificed  her  honour.  This  tale  an  impar- 
tial judge  must  reject.  It  is  unsupported  by  proof.  The  ear- 
liest authority  for  it  is  a  poem  written  by  Pomfret.  The  respect- 
able historians  of  that  age,  while  they  speak  with  just  severity 
of  the  crimes  of  Kirke,  either  omit  all  mention  of  this  most 
artrocious  crime,  or  mention  it  as  a  thing  rumoured  but  not  prov- 
ed. Those  who  tell  the  story  tell  it  with  such  variations  as  de- 
pr-ive  it  of  all  title  to  credit.  Some  lay  the  scene  at  Taunton, 
some  at  Exeter.  Some  make  the  heroine  of  the  tale  a  maiden, 
some-  a  married  woman.  The  relation  for  whom  the  shameful 
ransom  was  paid  is  described  by  some  as  her  father,  by  some  as 
her  brother,  and  by  some  as  her  husband.  Lastly  the  story  is 
one  which,  long  before  Kirke  was  born,  had  been  told  of  many 
other  oppressors,  and  had  become  a  favourite  theme  of  novelists 
and  dramatists.  Two  politicians  of  the  fifteenth  century,  Rhyn- 
sault,  the  favorite  of  Charles  the  Bold  of  Burgundy,  and  Oliver  le 
Dain,  the  favourite  of  Lewis  the  Eleventh  of  France,  had  been 
accused  of  the  same  crime.  Cintio  had  taken  it  for  the  subject 
of  a  romance.  Whetstone  had  made  out  of  Cintio's  narrative 
the  rude  play  of  Promos  and  Cassandra;  and  Shakspeare  had 
borrowed  from  Whetstone  the  plot  of  the  noble  tragicomedy  of 

*  OMmixcD,  703;  Life  snd  Errors  of  Join  Dunton,  chap.  vii. 


570  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Measure  for  Measure.  As  Kirke  was  not  the  first,  so  he  was 
not  the  last,  to  whom  this  excess  of  wickedness  was  popularly 
imputed.  During  the  reaction  which  followed  the  Jacobin  tyr- 
anny in  France,  a  very  similar  chai'ge  was  brought  against 
Joseph  Lebon,  one  of  the  most  odious  agents  of  the  Committee 
of  Public  Safety,  and,  after  enquiry,  was  admitted  even  by  his 
prosecutors  to  be  unfounded.* 

The  government  was  dissatisfied  with  Kirke,  not  on  account 
of  the  barbarity  with  which  he  had  treated  his  needy  prisoners 
but  on  account  of  the  interested  lenity  which  he  had  shown  to 
rich  delinquents. t  He  was  soon  recalled  from  the  West.  A 
less  irregular  and  more  cruel  massacre  was  about  to  be  perpe- 
trated. The  vengeance  was  deferred  during  some  weeks.  It 
was  thought  desirable  that  the  Western  Circuit  should  not  begin 
till  the  other  circuits  had  terminated.  In  the  meantime  the 
gaols  of  Somersetshire  and  Dorsetshire  were  filled  with  thou- 
sands of  captives,  The  chief  friend  and  protector  of  these  un- 
happy men  in  their  extremity  was  one  who  abhorred  their  re- 
ligious and  political  opinions,  one  whose  order  they  hated, 
and  to  whom  they  had  done  unprovoked  wrong,  Bishop  Ken, 
That  good  prelate  used  all  his  influence  to  soften  the  gaolers,  and 
retrenched  from  his  own  episcopal  state  that  he  might  be  able 
to  make  some  addition  to  the  coarse  and  scanty  fare  of  those 
who  had  defaced  his  beloved  Cathedral.  His  conduct  on  this 
occasion  was  of  a  piece  with  his  whole  life.  His  intellect  was  in- 
deed darkened  by  many  superstitions  and  prejudices:  but  his 
moral  character,  when  impartially  reviewed,  sustains  a  compari- 
son with  any  in  ecclesiastical  histoiy,  and   seems   to  approach, 

*  The  silence  of  Whig  writers  so  credulous  and  so  malevolent  as  Oidmixon  and 
the  compilers  of  the  Western  Martyrology  would  alone  seem  to  me  to  settle  the  ques- 
tion. It  also  deserves  to  be  remarked  that  the  story  of  Rhynsault  is  told  by  Steele  in 
the  Spectator,  No.  491.  Surely  it  is  hardly  possible  to  believe  that,  if  a  crime  exactly  re- 
sembling that  of  Rhynsault  had  been  committed  within  living  memory  in  England  by 
an  officer  of  James  the  Second,  Steele,  who  was  indiscreetly  and  unseasonably  for- 
ward to  display  his'SMiiggism,  would  have  made  no  allusion  to  that  fact.  For  the  case 
of  Lebon,  see  the  Moniteur,  4  Messidor,  Tan  3. 

t  Sunderland  to  Kirke.  July  14  and  "iS,  1685.  "His  Majesty,"  says  Sunderland, 
"commands  me  to  signify  to  you  his  dislike  of  those  proceedings,  and  desires  you  to 
take  care  that  no  person  concerned  in  the  rebellion  be  at  large."  It  is  but  just  to  add 
that,  in  the  same  letter,  Kirke  is  blamed  for  allowing  his  soldiers  to  live  at  free 
quarter. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  571 

as  near  as  human  infirmity  permits,  to  the  ideal  perfection  of 
Christian  virtue.* 

His  labour  of  love  was  of  no  long  duration.  A  rapid  and 
effectual  gaol  delivery  vpas  at  hand.  Early  in  September, 
Jeffreys,  accompanied  by  four  other  judges,  set  out  on  that  cir- 
cuit of  which  the  memory  will  last  as  long  as  our  race  and 
language.  The  officers  who  commanded  the  troops  in  the  dis- 
tricts through  which  his  course  lay  had  orders  to  furnish  him 
with  whatever  militarj'-  aid  he  might  require.  Kis  ferocious 
temper  needed  no  spur;  yet  a  spur  was  applied.  The  health 
and  spirits  of  the  Lord  Keeper  had  given  away.  He  had  been 
deeply  mortified  by  the  coldness  of  the  King  and  by  the  inso- 
lence of  the  Chief  Justice,  and  could  find  little  consolation  in 
looking  back  on  a  life,  not  indeed  blackened  by  any  atrocious 
crime,  but  sullied  by  cowardice,  selfishness,  and  servility.  So 
deeply  was  the  unhappy  man  humbled  that,  when  he  appeared 
for  the  last  time  in  Westminster  Hall,  he  took  with  him  a  nose- 
gay to  hide  his  face,  because,  as  he  afterwards  owned,  he  could 
not  bear  the  eyes  of  the  bar  and  of  the  audience.  The  pros- 
pect of  his  approaching  end  seems  to  have  inspired  him  with 
unwonted  courage.  He  determined  to  dischai*ge  his  conscience, 
requested  an  audience  of  the  King,  spoke  earnestly  of  the  dan- 
gers inseparable  from  violent  and  arbitrary  counsels,  and  con- 
demned the  lawless  cruelties  which  the  soldiers  had  committed 
in  Somersetshire.  He  soon  afte«  retired  from  London  to  die. 
He  breathed  his  last  a  few  days  after  the  Judges  set  out  for 
the  West.  It  was  immediately  notified  to  Jeffreys  that  he 
might  expect  the  Great  Seal  as  the  reward  of  faithful  and  vig- 
orous service.! 

*  I  should  be  very  glad  if  I  could  give  credit  to  the  popular  story  that  Ken,  imme- 
diately nfter  the  battle  of  Sedgmoore,  represented  to  the  chiefs  of  the  royal  erniy  the 
illegality  of  military  executions.  He  would,  I  doubt  not,  have  exerted  all  his  influ- 
ence on' the  side  of  law  and'of  mercy,  if  he  had  been  present.  But  there  is  ro  trust- 
worthy evidence  that  he  was  then  in  the  West  at  all.  Indeed  what  we  kn9w  about 
his  proceedings  at  this  time  amounts  very  nearly  to  proof  of  an  alibi.  It  is  certain 
from  the  Journals  of  the  House  of  Lords  that,  on  the  Thursday  before  the  battle,  he 
was  at  Westminster;  It  is  equally  certain  that,  on  the  Monday  after  the  bt.ttle,  he 
was  with  Monmouth  in  the  Tower ;  and,  in  that  age,  a  journey  from  London  to  Bridge- 
water  and  back  again  was  no  lisht  thing. 

tNorth's  Life  of  Guildford,  260,  2H3,  273;  Mackintosh's  View  of  the  Reign  of 
?ames  the  Second,  page  16,  note;  Letter  of  Jeffreys  to  Sunderlaad,  September  5,  l(J85i 


572  HISTORY    OF    ENGLANP. 

At  Winchester  the  Chief  Justice  first  opened  his  commis- 
sion. Hampshire  had  not  been  the  theatre  of  war;  but  many 
of  the  vanquished  rebels  had,  like  their  leader,  fled  thither. 
Two  of  them,  John  Hickes,  a  Nonconformist  divine,  and  Richard 
Nelthorpe,  a  lawyer  who  had  been  outlawed  for  taking  part  in 
the  Rye  House  plot,  had  sought  refuge  at  the  house  of  Alice, 
widow  of  John  Lisle.  John  Lisle  had  sate  in  the  Long  Par- 
liament and  in  the  High  Court  of  Justice,  had  been  a  com- 
missioner of  the  Great  Seal  in  the  days  of  the  Commonwealth, 
and  had  been  created  a  Lord  by  Cromwell.  The  titles  given 
by  the  Protector  had  not  been  recognized  by  any  government 
which  had  ruled  England  since  the  downfall  of  his  house;  but 
they  appear  to  have  been  often  used  in  conversation,  even  by 
Royalists.  John  Lisle's  widow  was  therefore  commonly  known 
as  the  Lady  Alice.  She  was  related  to  many  respectable,  and 
to  some  noble,  families;  and  she  was  generally  esteemed  even 
by  the  Tory  gentlemen  of  her  country.  For  it  was  well  known 
to  them  that  she  had  deeply  regretted  some  violent  acts  in 
which  her  husband  had  borne  a  part,  that  she  had  shed  bitter 
tears  for  Chai-les  the  Fii'st,  and  that  she  had  protected  and  re- 
lieved many  Cavaliers  in  their  distress.  The  same  womanly 
kindness,  which  had  led  her  to  befriend  the  Royalists  in  their 
time  of  trouble,  would  not  suffer  her  to  refuse  a  meal  and  a  hid- 
ing place  to  the  wretched  men  who  now  entreated  her  to  pro- 
tect them.  She  took  them  inio  her  house,  set  meat  and  drink 
before  them,  and  showed  them  whei'e  they  might  take  rest. 
The  next  moi-ning  her  dwelling  was  surrounded  by  soldiers. 
Strict  search  was  made.  Hickes  was  found  concealed  in  the 
malthouse,  and  Nelthorpe  in  the  chimney.  If  Lady  Alice 
knew  her  efuests  to  have  been  concerned  in  the  insurrection,  she 
was  undoubtedly  guilty  of  what,  in  strictness,  was  a  capital 
crime.  For  the  law  of  principal  and  accessory,  as  respects  high 
treason,  then  was,  and  is  to  this  day,  in  a  state  disgraceful  to 
English  jurisprudence.  In  cases  of  felony,  a  distinction, 
founded  on  justice  and  reason,  is  made  between  the  principal 
and  the  accessory  after  the  fact.  He  who  conceals  from  justice 
one  whom  he  knows  to  be  a  murderer  is  liable  to  punishment, 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  573 

but  not  to  the  punishment  of  murder.  He,  on  the  other  hand, 
who  shelters  one  whom  he  knows  to  be  a  traitor  is,  according  to 
all  our  jurists,  guilty  of  high  treason.  It  is  unnecessary  to 
point  out  the  absurdity  and  cruelty  of  a  law  which  includes 
under  the  same  definition,  and  visits  with  the  same  penalty, 
offenses  lying  at  the  opposite  extremes  of  the  scale  of  guilt. 
The  feeling  which  makes  the  most  loyal  subject  shrink  from 
the  thought  of  giving  up  to  a  shameful  death  the  rebel  who, 
vanquished,  hunted  down,  and  in  mortal  agony,  begs  for  a 
morsel  of  bread  and  a  cup  of  water,  may  be  a  weakness;  but 
it  is  sui-ely  a  weakness  very  nearly  allied  to  virtue;  a  weakness 
which,  constituted  as  human  beings  are,  we  can  hardly  eradi- 
cate fi'om  the  mind  without  eradicating  many  noble  and  benev- 
olent sentiments.  A  wise  and  good  ruler  may  not  think  it  right 
to  sanction  this  weakness;  but  he  will  generally  connive  at  it, 
or  punish  it  very  tenderly.  In  no  case  will  he  treat  it  as  a 
crime  of  the  blackest  dye.  Whether  Flora  Macdonald  was 
justified  in  concealing  the  attainted  heir  of  the  Stuarts,  whether 
a  brave  soldier  of  our  own  time  was  justified  in  assisting  the 
escape  of  Lavelette,  are  questions  on  which  casuists  may  differ; 
but  to  class  such  actions  with  the  crimes  of  Guy  Faux  and 
Fieschi  is  an  outrage  to  humanity  and  common  sense.  Such, 
however,  is  the  classification  of  our  law.  It^is  evident  that 
nothing  but  a  lenient  administration  could  make  such  a  state  of 
the  law  endurable.  And  it  is  just  to  say  that,  during  many 
generations,  no  English  government,  save  one,  has  treated  with 
rigour  persons  guilty  merely  of  harbouring  defeated  and  flying 
insurgents.  To  women,  especially,  has  been  granted,  by  a  kind 
of  tacit  prescription,  the  right  of  indulging,  in  the  midst  of  havoc 
and  vengeance,  that  compassion  which  is  the  most  endearing  of 
all  their  charms.  Since  the  beginning  of  the  great  civil  war, 
numerous  rebels,  some  of  them  far  more  important  than  Hickes 
or  Nelthorpe,  have  been  protected  from  the  severity  of  victori- 
ous governments  by  female  adroitness  and  generosity.  But  no 
English  ruler  who  has  been  thus  baffled,  the  savage  and  implac- 
able James  alone  excepted,  has  had  the  barbarity  even  to  think 
of  putting  a  lady  to  a  cruel  anjd  shameful  death  for  so  venial 
and  amiable  a  transgression. 


i>f4  HISTu«T    OF    F.TGLAND. 

Odious  as  the  law  was,  it  was  strained  for  the  purpose  of 
destroying  Alice  Lisle.  She  could  not,  according  to  the  doc- 
trine laid  down  by  the  highest  authority,  be  convicted  till  after 
the  conviction  of  the  i*ebels  whom  she  had  harboured.*  She 
was,  however,  set  to  the  bar  before  either  Hickes  or  Nelthorpe 
had  been  tried.  It  was  no  easy  matter,  in  such  a  case,  to 
obtain  a  verdict  for  the  crown.  The  witnesses  prevaricated. 
The  jury,  consisting  of  the  principal  gentlemen  of  Hampshire, 
shi'ank  from  the  thought  of  sending  a  fellow  creature  to  the 
stake  for  conduct  which  seemed  deserving  rather  of  praise 
than  of  blame.  Jeffreys  was  beside  himself  with  fury.  This 
was  the  first  case  of  treason  on  the  circuit;  and  there  seemed 
to  be  a  strong  probability  ihat  his  prey  would  escape  him. 
He  stormed,  cursed,  and  swore  in  language  which  no  wellbred 
man  would  have  used  at  a  race  or  a  cockfight.  One  witness 
named  Dunne,  partly  from  concern  for  Lady  Alice,  and  partly 
from  fright  at  the  threats  and  maledictions  of  the  Chief  Justice, 
entirely  lost  his  head,  and  at  last  stood  silent.  "  Oh,  how  hax-d 
the  truth  is,"  said  Jeffreys,  "  to  come  oul:  of  a  lying  Pi-esby- 
terian  knave."  The  witness,  after  a  pause  of  some  minutes, 
stammered  a  few  unmeaning  words.  "  Was  there  ever,"  ex- 
claimed the  judge,  with  an  oath,  "was  there  ever  such  a  villain 
on  the  face  of  the  earth?  Dost  thou  believe  that  there  is  a 
God?  Dost  thoii  believe  in  hell  fire?  Of  all  the  witnesses  that 
I  ever  met  with  I  never  saw  thy  fellow."  Still  the  poor  man, 
scared  out  of  his  senses,  remained  mute;  and  again  Jeffreys 
burst  forth.  "  I  hope,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  that  you  take 
T-jotice  of  the  horrible  carriage  of  this  fellow.  How  can  one 
Aelp  abhorring  both  these  men  and  their  religion?  A  Turk  is 
a  saint  to  such  a  fellow  as  this.  A  Pagan  would  be  ashamed  of 
such  villainy.  Oh  blessed  Jesus!  What  a  generation  of  vipers 
do  we  live  among!"  "I  cannot  tell  what  to  say,  my  Lord," 
faltered  Dunne.  The  judge  again  broke  forth  into  a  volley  of 
oaths.  "  Was  there  ever,"  he  cried,  "such  an  impudent  rascal? 
Hold  the  candle  to  him  that  we  may  see  his  brazen  face.  You, 
gentlemen,  that  are  of  counsel  for  the  crown,  see  that  an  infor- 
*  See  the  preamble  •!  the  Aet  ef  PsurlUnent  rerMsiag  her  attainder. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  S7t 

mation  for  perjury  be  preferred  against  this  fellow."  After  th« 
witnesses  had  been  thus  handled,  the  Lady  Alice  was  called  on 
for  her  defence.  She  began  by  saying,  what  may  possibly  havo 
been  true,  that  though  she  knew  Hickes  to  be  in  trouble  when 
she  took  him  in,  she  did  not  know  or  suspect  that  ha  had  been 
concerned  in  the  rebellion.  He  was  a  divine,  a  man  of  peace. 
It  had,  therefore,  never  occurred  to  her  that  he  could  have  borne 
arms  against  the  government;  and  she  had  supposed  that  he 
wished  to  conceal  himself  because  warrants  were  out  against  him 
for  field  preaching.  The  Chief  Justice  began  to  storm.  "  But 
I  will  tell  you.  There  is  not  one  of  those  lying,  snivelling, 
canting  Presbyterians  but,  one  way  or  another,  had  a  hand  in 
the  rebellion.  Presbytery  has  all  manner  of  villany  in  it. 
Nothing  but  Presbytery  could  have  made  Dunne  such  a  rogue. 
Show  me  a  Presbyterian,  and  Til  show  thee  a  lying  knave. 
He  summed  up  in  the  same  style,  declaimed  during  an  hour 
against  Whigs  and  Dissenters,  and  reminded  the  jury  that  the 
prisoner's  husband  had  borne  a  part  in  the  death  of  Charles  the 
First,  a  fact  which  had  not  been  proved  by  any  testimony,  and 
which,  if  it  had  been  proved,  would  have  been  utterly  irrelevant 
to  the  issue.  The  jury  retired,  and  remained  long  in  consul- 
tation. The  judge  grew  impatient.  He  could  not  conceive,  he 
said,  how,  in  so  plain  a  case,  they  should  even  have  left  the  box. 
He  sent  a  messenger  to  tell  them  that,  if  they  did  not  instantly 
return,  he  would  adjourn  the  court  and  lock  them  up  all  night, 
Thus  put  to  the  torture,  they  came,  but  came  to  say  that  they 
doubted  whether  the  charge  had  been  made  out.  Jeffreys  ex- 
postulated with  them  vehemently,  and,  after  another  consulta- 
tion, they  gave  a  reluctant  verdict  of  Guilty. 

On  the  following  morning  sentence  was  pronounced.  Jef- 
freys gave  directions  that  Alice  Lisle  should  be  burned  alive 
that  very  afternoon.  This  excess  of  barbarity  moved  the  pity 
and  indignation  even  of  the  class  which  was  most  devoted  to  the 
crown.  The  clergy  of  Winchester  Cathedral  remonstrated  with 
the  Chief  Justice,  who,  brutal  as  he  was,  was  not  mad  enough 
to  risk  a  quarrel  on  such  a  subject  with  a  body  so  much  respect- 
ed by  the  Tory  party.     He  consented  to  put  off  the  execution 


576  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

five  (lays.  Duinng  that  time  the  friends  of  the  prisoner  besought 
James  to  be  merciful.  Ladies  of  high  rank  interceded  for  her. 
Fevershara,  whose  recent  victory  had  increased  his  influence  at 
court,  and  who,  it  is  said,  had  been  bribed  to  take  the  compas- 
sionate side,  spoke  in  her  favour.  Clarendon,  the  King's 
brother-in-law,  pleaded  her  cause.  But  all  was  vain.  The 
utmost  that  could  be  obtained  was  that  her  sentence  should  be 
commuted  from  burning  to  beheading.  She  was  put  to  death 
on  a  scaffold  in  the  marketplace  of  Winchester,  and  underwent 
her  fate  with  serene  courage.* 

In  Hampshire,  Alice  Lisle  was  the  only  victim;  but,  on  the 
day  following  her  execution,  Jeffreys  reached  Dorchester,  the 
principal  town  of  the  county  in  which  Monmouth  had  landed; 
and  the  judicial  massacre  began.  The  court  was  hung,  by  order 
of  the  Chief  Justice,  with  scarlet;  and  this  innovation  seemed 
to  the  multitude  to  indicate  a  bloody  purpose.  It  was  also 
rumored  that,  when  the  clergyman  who  preached  the  assize 
sermon  enforced  the  dut}'^  of  mercy,  the  ferocious  mouth  of  th( 
Judge  was  distorted  by  an  ominous  grin.  These  things  made 
men  augur  ill  of  what  was  to  follow.f 

More  than  three  hundred  prisoners  were  to  be  tried.  The 
work  seemed  heavy;  but  Jeffreys  had  a  contrivance  for  making 
it  light.  He  let  it  be  understood  that  the  only  chance  of  obtain- 
ing pardon  or  respite  was  to  plead  guilty.  Twenty-nine  persons, 
who  put  themselves  on  their  country,  and  were  convicted,  were 
ordered  to  be  tied  up  without  delay.  The  remaining  prisoners 
pleaded  guilty  by  scores.  Two  hundred  and  ninety-two  received 
sentence  of  death.  The  whole  number  hanged  in  Dorsetshire 
amounted  to  seventy-foui*. 

From  Dorchester,  Jeffreys  proceeded  to  Exeter.  The  civil 
war  had  barely  grazed  the  frontier  of  Devonshire.  Here, 
therefore,  comparatively  few  persons  were  capitally  punished. 
Somersetshire,  the  chief  seat  of  the  rebellion,  had  been  reserved 

*  Trial  of  Alice  Lisle  in  the  Collection  of  State  Trials ;  Act  of  the  First  of  William 
and  Mary  for  ami  ulling  and  makuig  void  the  Attainder  of  Alice  Lisle,  widow ;  Burnet, 
i,  649;  Caveat  against  tlie  Whigs. 

t  Bloody  Assizes. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  577 

for  thfe  last  and  most  fearful  vengeauce.  In  this  county  two 
hundred  and  thirty-three  prisoners  were  in  a  few  days  hanged, 
drawn,  and  quartered.  At  every  spot  where  tv/o  roads  met,  on 
every  marketplace,  on  the  green  of  every  large  village  which 
had  furnished  Monmouth  with  soldiers,  ironed  corpses  clattering 
in  the  wind,  or  heads  and  quarters  stuck  on  poles,  poisoned  the 
air,  and  made  the  traveller  sick  with  horror.  In  many  parishes 
the  peasantry  could  not  assemble  in  the  house  of  God  without 
leeing  the  ghastly  face  of  a  neighbour  grinning  at  them  over 
the  porch.  The  Chief  Justice  was  ali  himself.  His  spirits  rose 
higher  and  higher  as  the  work  went  on.  He  laughed,  shouted, 
joked,  and  swore  in  such  a  way  that  many  thought  him  drunk 
from  morning  to  night.  But  in  him  it  was  not  easy  to  distin- 
guish the  madness  produced  by  evil  passions  from  the  madness 
produced  by  brandy.  A  prisoner  affirmed  that  the  witnesses 
who  appeared  against  him  were  not  entitled  to  credit.  One  of 
them,  he  said,  was  a  Papist,  and  another  a  prostitute.  "  Tliou 
impudent  rebel,"  exclaimed  the  Judge,  "  to  reflect  on  the  King's 
evidence!  I  see  thee,  villain,  I  see  thee  already  with  the  halter 
round  thy  neck."  Another  produced  testimony  that  he  was  a 
good  Protestant.  "  Protestant !  "  said  Jeffreys  ;  "  you  mean 
Presbyterian.  I'll  hold  you  a  wager  of  it.  I  can  smell  a 
Presbyterian  forty  miles."  One  wretched  man  moved  the  pity 
even  of  bitter  Tories.  "  My  Lord,"  they  said,  "  this  poor  crea- 
ture is  on  the  parish."  "  Do  not  trouble  yourselves,"  said  the 
Judge, "  I  will  ease  the  parish  of  the  burden."  It  was  not  only 
against  the  prisoners  that  his  fury  broke  fortlu  Gentlemen  and 
noblemen  of  high  consideration  and  stainless  loyalty,  who  ven 
tured  to  bring  to  his  notice  any  extenuating  circumstance,  wers 
almost  sure  to  receive  what  he  called,  in  the  coarse  dialect 
which  he  had  learned  in  the  pothouses  of  Whitechapel,  a  lick 
with  the  rough  side  of  his  tongue.  Lord  Stawell,  a  Tory  peer, 
who  could  not  conceal  his  horror  at  the  remorseless  manner  in 
which  his  poor  neighbours  were  butchered,  was  punished  by 
having  a  corpse  suspended  in  chains  at  his  park  gate.*  In  such 
flpectacles  originated  many  tales  of  terror,  which  were  long  told 

*  Locke's  Western  Rebellion. 

37 


578  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

over  the  cider  by  the  Christmas  fires  of  the  farmers  of  Somer- 
setshire, Withiu  the  last  forty  years,  peasants,  in  some  districts, 
well  knew  the  accursed  spots,  and  passed  them  unwillingly  after 
sunset.* 

Jeffreys  boasted  that  he  had  hanged  more  traitors  than  all 
his  predecessors  together  since  the  Conquest.  It  is  certain  that 
the  number  of  persons  whom  he  put  to  death  in  one  month,  and 
in  one  shire,  very  much  exceeded  the  number  of  all  the  political 
offenders  who  have  been  put  to  death  in  our  island  since  the 
Revolution.  The  rebellions  of  1715  and  1745  were  of  longer 
duration,  of  wider  extent,,  and  of  more  formidable  aspect  than 
that  which  was  put  down  at  Sedgemoor.  It  has  not  been  gen- 
erally thought  that,  either  after  the  rebellion  of  1715,  or  after 
the  rebellion  of  1745,  the  House  of  Hanover  erred  on  the  side 
of  clemency.  Yet  all  the  executions  of  1715  and  1745  added 
together  will  appear  to  have  been  few  indeed  when  compared 
with  those  which  disgraced  the  Bloody  Assizes.  The  number 
of  the  rebels  whom  Jeffreys  hanged  on  this  circuit  was  three 
hundred  and  twenty.! 

Such  havoc  must  have  excited  disgust  even  if  the  sufferers 
had  been  generally  odious.  But  they  were,  for  the  most  part, 
men  of  blameless  life,  and  of  high  religious  profession.  They 
were  regarded  by  themselves,  and  by  a  large  proportion  of  their 
neighbours,  not  as  wrongdoers,  but  as  martyrs  who  sealed  with 
blood  the  truth  of  the  Protestant  religion.  Very  few  of  the 
convicts  professed  any  repentance  for  what  they  had  done. 
Many,  animated  by  the  old  Puritan  spirit,  met  death,  not  merely 
with  fortitude,  but  with  exultation.  It  was  in  vain  that  the 
ministers  of  the  Established  Church  lectured  them  on  the  guilt 
of  rebellion  and  on  the  importance  of  priestly  absolution.  The 
claim  of  the  King  to  unbounded  authority  in  things  temporal, 
and  the  claim  of  the  clergy  to  the  spiritual  power  of  binding 
and  loosing,  moved  the  bitter  scorn^of  the  intrepid  sectaries. 
*  This  I  can  attest  from  my  own  childish  recollections. 

t  Lord  Lonsdale  says  seven  hundred  ;  Burnet  six  hundred.  I  have  followed 
the  list  which  the  Judges  sent  to  the  Treasun-,  and  which  may  still  he  seen  there 
ia  the  letter  book  of  1685.  See  the  Bloody  Assizes  ;  Locke's  Western  Eebellion  ; 
the  Panegyric  on  Lord  Jeffreys ;  Burnet,  i.  C48  ;  Eachard,  iii.  775;  Oldmiion, 
705. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  579 

Some  of  them  composed  hymns  in  the  dungeon,  and  chaunted 
them  on  the  fatal  sledge.  Christ,  they  sang  while  they  were 
undressing  for  the  butchery,  would  soon  come  to  rescue  Ziou 
and  to  make  war  on  Babylon,  would  set  up  his  standard,  would 
blow  his  trumpet,  and  would  requite  his  foes  tenfold  for  all  the 
evil  which  had  been  inflicted  on  his  servants.  The  dying  words 
of  these  men  were  noted  down  :  their  farewell  letters  were  kept 
as  treasures  ;  and,  in  this  way,  with  the  help  of  some  inventioii 
and  exaggeration,  was  formed  a  copious  supplement  to  the 
Marian  martyrology.* 

A  few  cases  deserve  special  mention.  Abraham  Holmes, 
a  retired  officer  of  the  parliamentary  army,  and  one  of  those 
zealots  who  would  own  no  king  but  King  Jesus,  had  been  taken 
at  Sedgemoor.  His  arm  had  -been  frightfully  mangled  and 
shattered  in  the  battle  ;  and,  as  no  surgeon  was  at  hand,  the 
stout  old  soldier  amputated  it  himself.  He  w^as  carried  up  to 
London,  and  examined  by  the  King  in  Council,  but  would  make 
no  submission.  "  I  am  an  aged  man,"  he  said  ;  "  and  what  re- 
mains to  me  of  life  is  not  worth  a  falsehood  or  a  baseness.  I 
have  always  been  a  republican  ;  and  I  am  so  still."  He  was 
sent  back  to  the  West  and  hanged.  Tlie  people  remarked  with 
awe  and  wonder  that  the  beasts  which  were  to  dras:  him  to  the 
gallows  became  restive  and  went  back.  Holmes  himself  doubt- 
ed not  that  the  Angel  of  the  Lord,  as  in  the  old  time,  stood  in 
the  way  sword  in  hand,  invisible  to  human  eyes,  but  visible  to 
the  inferior  animals.  "  Stop,  gentlemen,"  he  cried  :  "let  me 
go  on  foot.  There  is  more  in  this  than  you  think.  Remember 
how  the  ass  saw  him  whom  the  prophet  could  not  see."  He 
walked  manfully  to  the  gallows,  harangued  the  people  with  a 
smile,  prayed  fervently  that  God  would  hasten  the  downfall  of 
Antichrist  and  the  deliverance  of  England,  and  went  up  the 
ladder  with  an  apology  for  mounting  so  awkwardly.  "  You 
see,"  he  said,  "  I  have  but  one  arm."  f 

*  Some  of  the  prayers,  exhortations,  and  hymns  of  the  sufferers  will  be  found 
in  the  Bloody  Assizes. 

t  Bloody  Assizes  ;  Locke's  "Western  Rebellion  ;  Lord  Lonsdale's  Memoirs  ; 
Account  of  the  Battle  of  Sedgemoor  In  the  Hardwicke  Papers.  The  story  in 
the  Life  of  James  the  Second,  ii.  43,  is  not  taken  fro  m  the  King's  manuscripts, 
and  sufiioiently  refutes  itself. 


580  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Not  less  courageously  died  Christopher  Battiscombe,  a  young 
Templar  of  good  family  and  fortune,  who,  at  Dorchester,  an 
agreeable  provincial  town  proud  of  its  taste  and  refinement, 
was  regarded  by  all  as  the  model  of  a  fine  gentleman.  Great 
interest  was  made  to  save  him.  It  was  believed  througfh  the 
West  of  England  that  he  was  engaged  to  a  young  lady  of  gentle 
blood,  the  sister  of  the  Sheriff,  that  she  threw  herself  at  the 
feet  of  Jeffreys  to  beg  for  mercy,  and  that  Jeffreys  drove  her 
from  him  with  a  jest  so  hideous  that  to  repeat  it  would  be  an 
offence  against  decency  and  humanity.  Her  lover  suffered  at 
Lyme  piously  and  courageously.* 

A  still  deeper  interest  was  excited  by  the  fate  of  two  gallant 
brothers,  "William  and  Benjamin  Hewling.  They  were  young, 
handsome,  accomplished,  and  well  connected.  Their  maternal 
grandfather  was  named  Kiffin.  He  was  one  of  the  first  mer- 
chants in  London,  and  was  generally  considered  as  the  head  of 
the  Baptists.  The  Chief  Justice  behaved  to  William  Hewling 
on  tlie  trial  with  characteristic  brutality.  "  You  have  a  grand- 
father," he  said,  "  who  deserves  to  be  hanged  as  richly  as  you." 
The  poor  lad,  who  was  only  nineteen,  suffered  death  with  so 
much  meekness  and  fortitude,  that  an  officer  of  the  army  who 
attended  the  execution,  and  who  had  made  himself  remarkable 
by  rudeness  and  severity,  was  strangely  melted,  and  said,  "  I 
do  not  believe  that  my  Lord  Chief  Justice  himself  could  be 
proof  against  this."  Hopes  were  entertained  that  Benjamin 
would  be  pardoned.  One  victim  of  tender  years  was  surely 
enough  for  one  house  to  furnish.  Even  Jeffreys  was,  or  pre- 
tended to  be,  inclined  to  lenity.  The  truth  was  that  one  of 
his  kinsmen,  from  whom  he  had  large  expectations,  and  whom, 
therefore,  he  could  not  treat  as  he  generally  treated  intercessors, 
pleaded  strongly  for  the  afflicted  family.  Time  was  allowed 
for  a  reference  to  London.  The  sister  of  the  prisoner  went  to 
Whitehall  with  a  petition.  Many  courtiers  wished  her  success  ; 
and  Churchill,  among  whose  numerous  faults  cruelty  had  no 
place,  obtained  admittance  for  her.     "  I  wish  well  to  your  suit 

*  Bloody  Assizes  ;  Locke's  "Western  Kebellion  ;  Humble  Petition  of  Widows 
and  Fatherless  Children  in  the  "West  of  England  ;  Panegyric  on  Lord  Jetlreys. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  581 

with  all  my  heart,"  he  said,  as  they  stood  together  in  the 
antechamber  ;  "  but  do  not  flatter  yourself  with  hopes.  This 
marble," — and  he  laid  his  hand  on  the  chimneypiece, — "  is  not 
harder  than  the  King."  Tlie  prediction  proved  true.  James 
was  inexorable.  Benjamin  Hewling  died  with  dauntless  courage, 
amidst  lamentations  in  which  the  soldiers  who  kept  guard  round 
the  gallows  could  not  refrain  from  joining.* 

Yet  those  rebels  who  were  doomed  to  death  were  less  to  be 
pitied  than  some  of  the  survivors.  Several  prisoners  to  whom 
Jeffreys  was  unable  to  bring  home  the  charge  of  high  treason 
were  convicted  of  misdemeanours,  and  were  sentenced  to  scourg- 
ing not  less  terrible  than  that  which  Gates  had  undergone.  A 
woman  for  some  idle  words,  such  as  had  been  uttered  by  half 
the  women  in  the  districts  where  the  war  had  raged,  was  con- 
demned to  be  whipped  through  all  the  market  towns  in  the 
county  of  Dorset.  She  suffered  part  of  her  punishment  before 
Jeffreys  returned  to  London ;  but,  when  he  was  no  longer  in 
the  West,  the  gaolers,  with  the  humane  connivance  of  the  magis- 
trates, took  on  themselves  the  responsibility  of  sparing  her  any 
further  torture.  A  still  more  frightful  sentence  was  passed  on 
a  lad  named  Tutchin,  who  was  tried  for  seditious  words.  He 
was,  as  usual,  interrupted  in  his  defence  by  libaldry  and  scurril- 
ity from  the  judgment  seat.  "  You  are  a  rebel ;  and  all  your 
family  have  been  rebels  since  Adam.  They  tell  me  that  you 
are  a  poet.  I'll  cap  verses  with  you.  The  sentence  was  that 
the  boy  should  be  imprisoned  seven  years,  and  should,  during 
that  period,  be  flogged  through  every  market  town  in  Dorset- 
shire every  year.  The  women  in  the  galleries  burst  into  tears. 
The  clerk  of  the  arraigns  stood  up  in  great  disorder.  "  My 
Lord,"  said  he,  "  the  prisoner  is  very  young.  There  are  many 
market  towns  ni  our  county.  The  sentence  amounts  to  whip- 
ping once  a  fortnight  for  seven  years."  "  If  he  is  a  young  man," 

♦  As  to  the  Hewlings,  I  have  followed  Kiffin's  Memoirs,  and  Mr.  Hewling  Lu- 
Bon'8  narrative,  which  will  be  found  in  the  second  edition  of  the  Hughes  Cor- 
respondence, vol.  ii.  Appendix.  The  accounts  in  Locke's  Westt.n  Rebellion  and 
in  the  Panegyric  on  Jeffrej's  are  full  of  errors.  Great  part  of  the  account  in 
the  Bloody  Assizes  was  written  by  Kiffin,  and  agrees  word  for  word  with  hia 
Memoirs. 


§82  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

said  Jeffreys,  "  he  is  an  old  rogue.  Ladies,  you  do  not  know  the 
villain  as  well  as  I  do.  The  punishmeut  is  not  half  bad  enough 
for  him.  All  the  interest  in  England  shall  not  alter  it."  Tutchin 
in  his  despair  petitioned,  and  probably  with  sincerity,  that  he 
might  be  hanged.  Fortunately  for  him  he  was,  just  at  this  con- 
juncture, taken  ill  of  the  smallpox  and  given  over.  As  it  seemed 
highly  improbable  that  the  sentence  would  ever  be  executed,  the 
Chief  Justice  consented  to  remit  it,  in  return  for  a  bribe  which  re- 
duced the  prisoner  to  poverty.  The  temper  of  Tutchin,  not  orig- 
inally very  mild,  was  exasperated  to  madness  by  what  he  had 
undergone.  He  lived  to  be  known  as  one  of  the  most  acrimonious 
and  pertinacious  enemies  of  the  House  of  Stuart  and  of  the 
Tory  party.* 

The  number  of  prisoners  whom  Jeffreys  transported  was 
eight  hundi'ed  and  forty-one.  These  men,  more  wretched. than 
their  associates  who  suffered  death,  were  distributed  into  gangs, 
and  bestowed  on  persons  who  enjoyed  favour  at  court.  The 
conditions  of  the  gift  were  that  the  convicts  should  be  carried 
beyond  sea  as  slaves,  that  they  sliould  not  be  emancipated  for 
ten  years,  and  that  the  place  of  their  banishment  should  be  some 
West  Indian  island.  This  last  article  was  studiously  framed 
for  the  purpose  of  aggravating  the  misery  of  the  exiles.  In 
New  England  or  New  Jersey  they  would  have  found  a  popula- 
tion kindly  disposed  to  tliem  and  a  climate  not  unfavourable  to 
to  their  health  and  vigour.  It  was  therefore  determined  that 
they  should  be  sent  to  colonies  where  a  Puritan  could  hope  to 
inspire  litila  sympathy,  and  where  a  labourer  born  in  the  tem- 
perate zone  could  hope  to  enjoy  little  health.  Such  was  the 
state  of  the  slave  market  that  these  bondmen,  long  as  was  the 
passage,  and  sickly  as  they  were  likely  to  prove,  were  still  very 
valuable.  It  was  estimated  by  Jeffreys  that,  on  an  average, 
each  of  them,  after  all  charges  were  paid,  would  be  worth  from 
ten  to  fifteen  pounds.  There  was  therefore  much  angry  com- 
petition for  grants.  Some  Tories  in  the  "West  conceived  that 
tliey  had,  by  their  exertions  and  sufferings  during  the  insurrection, 

gee  Tutcbin's  account  of  his  own  case  in  the  Bloody  AasizcB. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  583 

earned  a  right  to  share  in  the  profits  which  had  been  eagerly 
enatched  up  by  the  sycophauts  of  AVhitehall.  The  courtiers, 
however,  were  victorious.* 

The  misery  of  the  exiles  fully  equalled  that  of  the  negroes 
who  are  now  carried  from  Congo  to  Brazil.  It  appears  from 
the  best  information  which  is  at  jjrcsent  accessible  that  more 
than  one  fifth  of  those  who  were  shipped  were  flung  to  the 
sharks  before  the  end  of  the  voyage.  The  human  cargoes  were 
stowed  close  in  the  holds  of  small  vessels.  So  little  space  was 
allowed  that  the  wretches,  many  of  whom  were  still  tormented 
by  unhealed  wounds,  could  not  all  lie  down  at  once  without 
lying  on  one  another.  They  were  never  suffered  to  go  on  deck. 
The  hatchway  was  constantly  watched  by  sentinels  armed  with 
hangers  and  blunderbusses.  In  the  dungeon  below  all  was 
darkness,  stench,  lamentation,  disease  and  death.  Of  ninety- 
nine  convicts  who  were  carried  out  in  one  vessel,  twenty-two 
died  before  they  reached  Jamaica,  although  the  voyage  was  per- 
formed with  unusual  speed.  The  survivors  when  they  arrived 
at  their  house  of  bondage  were  mere  skeletons.  During  some 
weeks  coarse  biscuit  and  fetid  water  had  been  doled  out  to  them 
in  such  scanty  measure  that  any  one  of  them  could  easily  have 
consumed  the  ration  which  was  assigned  to  five.  They  were, 
therefore,  in  such  a  state  that  the  merchant  to  whom  they  had 
been  consigned  found  it  expedient  to  fatten  them  before  selling 
them.f 

Meanwhile  the  property  both  of  the  rebels  who  had  suffered 
death,  and  of  those  more  uufortunate  men  who  were  withering 
under  the  tropical  sun,  was  fought  for  and  torn  in  pieces  by 
a  crowd  of  greedy  informers.  By  law  a  subject  attainted  of 
treason  forfeits  all  his  substance ;  and  this  law  was  enforced 
after  the  Bloody  Assizes  with  a  rigour  at  once  cruel  aud  ludic« 


•  Sunderland  to  Jeffreys,  Sept.  14, 1685 ;  Jeffreys  to  the  King,  Sept.  19, 1685, 
in  the  State  Paper  Office. 

t  The  best  account  of  the  sufferings  of  those  rebels  who  were  sentenced  to 
transportation  is  to  be  found  in  a  very  curious  narrative  written  by  John  Coad, 
an  honest,  Godfearing  carpenter  who  joined  Monmouth,  was  badly  wounded  at 
Philip's  Norton,  was  tried  by  Jeffreys,  and  was  sent  to  Jamaica.  The  original 
numuscript  was  kindly  lent  to  me  by  Mr.  Pliippard,  to  whom  it  belongs. 


584  HISTORT    OF    ENGLAND. 

rous.  The  brokenhearted  widows  and  destitute  orphans  of  th^ 
labouring  men  whose  corpses  hung  at  the  cross  roads  were 
called  upon  by  the  agents  of  the  Treasury  to  explain  what  had 
become  of  a  basket,  of  a  goose,  of  a  flitch  of  bacon,  of  a  keg 
of  cider,  of  a  sack  of  beans,  of  a  truss  of  hay.*  "While  the  hum- 
bler retainers  of  the  government  were  pillaging  the  families  of 
the  slaughtered  peasants,  the  Chief  Justice  was  fast  accumulating 
a  fortune  out  of  the  plunder  of  a  higher  class  of  Whigs.  He 
traded  largely  in  pardons.  His  most  lucrative  transaction  of 
this  kind  was  with  a  gentleman  named  Edmund  Prideaux,  It 
is  certain  that  Prideaux  had  not  been  in  arms  against  the  gov- 
ernment;  and  it  is  probable  that  his  only  crime  was  the  wealth 
which  he  had  inherited  from  his  father,  an  eminent  lawyer  who 
had  been  high  in  office  under  the  Protector.  No  exertions 
were  spared  to  make  out  a  case  for  the  crown.  Mercy  was  of- 
fered to  some  prisoners  on  condition  that  they  would  bear  evi- 
dence against  Prideaux.  The  unfortunate  man  lay  long  in  gaol, 
and  at  length,  overcome  by  fear  of  the  gallows,  consented  to 
pay  fifteen  thousand  pounds  for  his  liberation.  This  great  sum 
was  received  by  Jeffreys.  He  bought  with  it  an  estate,  to  which 
the  people  gave  the  name  of  Aceldama,  from  that  accursed  field 
which  was  purchased  with  the  price  of  innocent  blood.f 

He  was  ably  assisted  in  the  work  of  exertion  by  the  crew 
of  parasites  who  were  in  the  habit  of  drinking  and  laughing 
with  him.  The  office  of  these  men  was  to  drive  hard  bargains 
with  convicts  under  the  strong  terrors  of  death,  and  with 
parents  trembling  for  the  lives  of  children.  A  portion  of  the 
spoil  was  abandoned  by  Jeffreys  to  his  agents.  To" one  of  his 
boon  companions,  it  is  said,  he  tossed  a  pardon  for  a  rich  traitor 
across  the  table  during  a  revel.  It  was  not  safe  to  have  re- 
course to  any  intercession  except  that  of  his  creatures  ;  for  he 
guarded  his  profitable  monopoly  of  mercy  with  jealous  care.  It 
was  even   suspected  that  he   sent  some   persons   to  the  gibbet 

*  In  the  Treasury  records  of  the  autumn  of  1C85  are  several  letters  directing 
eearch  to  be  made  for  trifles  of  this  sort. 

t  Commons'  Journals,  Oct.  9,  Nov.  10,  Dec  26,  1690  ;  Oldmixon,  706.  Pan* 
gyic  on  Jeffreys, 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  585 

solely  because  they  had  applied  for  the  royal  clemency  through 
channels  independent  of  him.* 

Some  courtiers  nevertheless  contrived  to  obtain  a  small 
share  of  this  traffic.  The  ladies  of  the  Queen's  household  dis- 
tinguished themselves  preeminently  by  rapacity  and  hardheart- 
edness.  Part  of  the  disgrace  which  they  incurred  falls  on  their 
mistress  :  for  it  was  solely  on  account  of  the  relation  in  which 
they  stood  to  her  that  they  were  able  to  enrich  themselves  by 
so  odious  a  trade ;  and  there  can  be  no  question  that  she  might 
with  a  word  or  a  look  have  restrained  them.  But  in  truth  she  en- 
couraged tliem  by  her  evil  example,  if  not  by  her  express  ap- 
probation. She  seems  to  have  been  one  of  that  large  class  of 
persons  who  bear  adversity  better  than  prosperity.  While  her 
husband  was  a  subject  and  an  exile,  shut  out  from  public  em- 
ployment, and  in  imminent  danger  of  being  deprived  of  his  birth- 
right, the  suavity  and  humility  of  her  manners  conciliated  the 
kindness  even  of  those  who  most  abhorred  her  reliofion.  But 
when  her  good  fortune  came  her  good  nature  disappeared.  The 
meek  and  affable  Duchess  turned  out  an  ungracious  and  haughty 
Queen. t  The  misfortunes  which  she  subsequently  endured 
have  made  her  an  object  of  some  interest ;  but  that  interest 
would  be  not  a  little  heightened  if  it  could  be  shown  that,  in  the 
season  of  her  greatness,  she  saved,  or  even  tried  to  save,  one 
single  victim  from  the  most  frightful  proscription  that  England 
has  ever  seen.  Unhappily  the  only  request  that  she  is  known 
to  have  preferred  touching  the  rebels  was  that  a  hundred  of 
those  who  were  sentenced  to  transportation  might  be  given  to 
her. J  The  profit  which  she  cleared  on  the  cargo,  after  making 
large  allowance  for  those  who  died  of  hunger  and  fever  during 
the  passage,  cannot  be  estimated  at  less  than  a  thousand  guineas. 
We  cannot  wonder  that  her  attendants  should  have  imitated 
her  unprincely  greediness  and  her  unwomanly  cruelty.     They 

*  Life  and  Deatk  of  Lord  Jeffreys  ;  Panegyric  on  Jeffreys  ;  Kiffln's  Memoirs, 
t  Burnet,  i    368;  Evelyn's  Diary,  Feb.  4,  1684-5.  July  13,  1686.    In  one  of  thil 
satires  of  that  time  are  these  lines  : 

"  When  Duchess,  she  was  gentle,  mild,  and  civil  ; 
When  Queen,  she  proved  a  raging  furious  devil." 
t  Sunderland  to  JefEreys,  Sept.  14,  1685 


586  .  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

exacted  a  thousand  pounds  from  Roger  Hoare,  a  merchant  of 
Bridgewater,  who  had  contributed  to  the  military  chest  of  the 
rebel  army.  But  the  prey  on  which  they  pounced  most  eagerly 
was  one  which  it  might  have  been  thought  that  even  the  most 
iiugentle  natures  would  have  spared.  Already  some  of  the  girls 
who  had  presented  the  standard  to  Monmouth  at  Taunton  had 
cruelly  expiated  their  offence.  One  of  them  had  been  thrown 
into  prison  where  an  infectious  malady  was  raging.  She  had 
sickened  and  died  there.  Another  had  presented  herself  at  the  bar 
before  Jeffreys  to  beg  for  mercy.  "  Take  her,  gaoler,"  vociferated 
the  Judge,  with  one  of  those  frowns  which  had  often  struck  terror 
into  stouter  hearts  than  hers.  She  burst  into  tears,  drew  her 
hood  over  her  face,  followed  the  gaoler  out  of  the  court,  fell  ill 
of  fright,  and  in  a  few  hours  was  a  corpse.  Most  of  the  young 
ladies,  however,  who  had  walked  in  the  procession  were  still  alive. 
Some  of  them  Avere  under  ten  years  of  age.  All  had  acted 
under  the  orders  of  their  schoolmistress,  without  knowing  that 
they  were  committing  a  crime.  The  Queen's  maids  of  honour 
asked  the  royal  permission  to  wring  money  out  of  the  parents 
of  the  poor  children  ;  and  the  permission  was  granted.  An  or- 
der was  sent  down  to  Ta^intou  that  all  these  little  girls  should 
be  seized  and  imprisoned.  Sir  Francis  Warre  of  Hestercombe, 
the  Tory  member  for  Bridgewater,  was  requested  to  undertake 
the  office  of  exacting  the  ransom.  He  was  charged  to  declare 
in  strong  language  that  the  maids  of  honour  would  not  endure 
delay,  that  they  were  determined  to  prosecute  to  outlawry,  unless 
a  reasonable  sum  were  forthcoming,  and  that  by  a  reason- 
able sum  was  meant  seven  thousand  pounds.  Warre  excused 
himself  from  taking  any  part  in  a  transaction  so  scandalous. 
The  maids  of  honour  then  requested  William  Penn  to  act  for 
them ;  and  Penn  accepted  the  commission.  Y6t  it  should  seem 
that  a  little  of  the  pertinacious  scrupulosity  which  he  had  often 
shown  about  taking  off  his  hat  would  not  have  been  altogether 
owt  of  place  on  this  occasion.  He  probably  silenced  the  remon- 
strances of  his  conscience  by  repeating  to  himself  that  none  of 
the  money  which  he  extorted  would  go  into  his  own  pocket ; 
that  if  he  i-efused  to  be  the  agent  of  the  ladies  they  would  find 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  587 

agents  less  humane  ;  that  by  complying  he  should  increase  his 
influence  at  the  court,  and  that  his  influence  at  the  court  had 
already  enabled  him,  and  still  might  enable  him,  to  render 
great  services  to  his  oppressed  brethren.  The  maids  of  honour 
were  at  last  forced  to  content  themselves  with  less  than  a 
third  part  of  what  they  had  demanded.* 

♦  Locke's  Western  Rebellion  ;  Toulmin's  History  of  Taunton,  edited  by 
(i.i^rage  ;  Letter  of  the  Duke  of  Somerset  to  Sir  F.  Warre  ;  Letter  of  Sunderland 
to.Penn,  Feb.  13, 1685-6,  from  the  State  Paper  Office,  in  the  Mackintosh  Collec- 
tioii.    (1848.) 

Ihv  letter  of  Sunderland  is  as  follows  :— 

"  Whitehall,  Feb.  13,  1685-6. 
"Mx  Penne, 

"  Her  Majesty's  Maids  of  Honour  having  acquainted  me  that  they  desigu 
to  empKj  you  and  Mr.  Walden  iu  making  a  composition  with  the  Relations  of 
the  Maids  >f  Taunton  for  ihe  high  Misdemeanour  they  have  been  guilty  of,  I  do 
at  their  request  hereby  let  you  know  that  His  Majesty  has  been  pleased  to  give 
their  Fines  to  the  said  Maids  of  Honour,  and  therefore  recommend  it  to  Mr.  Wal- 
den and  you  to  make  the  most  advantageous  composition  you  can  in  their  behalf. 

"lam,  Sir, 

"  Your  humble  servant, 

'•  Sunderland." 

That  the  perstji  to  whom  this  letter  was  addressed  was  William  Penn  the 
Quaker  was  not  dov  bted  by  Sir  James  Mackintosh  who  first  brought  it  to  light, 
or,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  by  any  oth^r  person,  till  after  the  publication  of  the 
first  part  of  this  History.  It  has  since  been  confidently  asserted  that  the  letter 
was  addressed  to  a  certain  George  Penne,  who  appears  from  an  old  account- 
book  lately  discovered  to  have  been  concerned  in  a  negotiation  for  the  ransom 
of  one  of  Monmouth's  followers,  named  Azariah  Piuney. 

If  I  thought  that  I  had  committed  an  error,  I  should,  I  hope,  have  the  honesty 
to  acknowledge  it.  But,  after  full  consideration,  I  am  satisfied  that  Sunder- 
land's letter  was  addressed  to  W^illiam  Penn. 

Much  has  been  said  aboi.  tthe  way  ^.n  which  the  name  is  spelt.  The  Qiiak  r, 
we  are  told,  was  not  Mr.  Peano,  but  Mr.  Pe.  -.  I  feci  assured  that  no  person 
conversant  with  the  \  -  ;  h;  I  anuscripts  of  the  seventeenth  century  will 
attach  any  importance  to  thic  r^-ume  .  It  is  notorious  that  a  proper  name  was 
then  thought  to  be  well  spelt  if  Vue  sound  were  preserved,  x'o  go  no  further  than 
the  persons,  who,  in  Penn's  time,  held  the  Great  Seal,  one  of  them  is  sometimes 
Hyde  and  sometimes  Hide  :  another  is  Jefferies,  Jeffries,  Jeffereys,  and  Jeffreys  : 
a  third  is  Somers,  Sommers,  and  Summers  :  a  fourth  is  Wright  and  Wrighte  ; 
and  a  fifth  is  Cowper  and  Cooper.  Tlie  Quaker's  name  was  spelt  in  three  ways. 
He,  and  his  father  the  Admiral  before  him,  invariably,  as  far  as  I  have  observed, 
spelt  it  Penn  ;  but  most  people  spelt  It  Pen  ;  and  there  were  some  who  adhered 
to  the  ancient  form,  Penne.  For  example,  William  the  father  is  Penne  in  a  let- 
ter from  Disbrowe  to  Thurloe,  dated  on  the  7th  of  December,  1654  ;  and  William 
the  son  is  Penne  in  a  newsletter  of  the  22nd  of  September,  1688,  printed  in  the 
Ellis  Correspondence.  In  Richard  Ward's  Life  and  Letters  of  Henry  More, 
printed  in  1710,  the  name  of  the  Quaker  will  be  found  spelt  in  all  the  three  ways, 
Penn  in  the  index,  Pen  in  page  197,  and  Penne  in  page  311.  The  name  is  Penne 
In  the  Commission  which  the  Admiral  carried  out  with  him  on  his  expedition  to 


588  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

No  English  sovereign  has  ever  given  stronger  proof  of  a 
cruel  nature  than  James  the  Second.  Yet  his  cruelty  was  not 
more  odious  than  his  mercy.     Or  perhaps  it  may  be  more  cor- 

the  West  Indies.  Burchett,  who  became  Secretary  to  the  Admiralty  soon  aftef 
the  Revolution,  and  remained  iu  office  long  after  the  accession  of  the  House  of 
Hanover,  always,  in  his  Naval  History,  wrote  the  name  Penne.  Surely  it  cannot 
be  thought  strange  that  an  old-fashioned  spelling,  in  which  the  Secretary  of  the 
Admiralty  persisted  so  late  as  1720,  should  have  been  used  at  the  office  of  tlie 
Secretary  of  State  in  168G.  I  am  quite  confident  that,  if  the  letter  which  we  are 
considering  had  been  of  a  different  kind,  if  Mr.  Penne  had  been  informed  that, 
in  consequence  of  his  earnest  intercession,  the  King  had  been  graciously  pleased 
to  grant  a  free  pardon  to  the  Taunton  girls,  and  if  I  had  attempted  to  deprive  the 
Quaker  of  the  credit  of  that  intercession  on  the  ground  that  his  name  was  not 
Penne,  the  very  persons  who  now  complain  so  bitterly  that  I  am  unjust  to  his 
memory  would  have  complained  quite  as  bitterly,  and,  I  must  say,  with  much 
more  reason. 

I  think  myself,  therefore,  perfectly  justified  in  considering  the  names,  Penn 
and  Penne,  as  the  same.  To  which,  then,  of  the  two  persons  who  bore  that  name, 
George  or  William,  is  it  probable  that  the  letter  of  the  Secretary  of  State  was 
addressed  ? 

George  was  evidently  an  adventurer  of  a  very  low  class.  All  that  we  learn 
about  him  from  the  papers  of  the  Piuney  family  is  that  he  was  employed  in  the 
purchase  of  a  pardon  for  the  younger  son  of  a  dissenting  minister.  The  whole 
sum  which  appears  to  have  passed  through  George's  hands  on  this  occasion  was 
sixty-five  pounds.  His  commission  on  the  transaction  must  therefore  have  been 
Email.  The  only  other  information  which  we  have  about  him,  is  that  he,  some 
time  later,  applied  to  the  government  for  a  favour  which  was  very  far  from  being 
an  honour.  In  England  the  Groom  Porter  of  the  Palace  had  a  jurisdiction  over 
games  of  chance,  and  made  some  very  dirty  gain  by  issuing  lott3ry  tickets  and 
licensing  hazard  tables.  George  appears  to  have  petitioned  for  a  similar  priv- 
ilege in  the  American  colonies. 

William  Pemi  was,  during  the  reign  of  James  the  Second,  the  most  active  and 
powerful  solicitor  about  the  Court.  I  will  quote  the  words  of  his  admirer 
Grose.  "  Quum  autem  Pennus  tanta  gratia  pluiimum  apud  regem  valeret,  et 
per  id  perplures  sibi  amicos  acquireret,  ilium  omnes,  etiam  qui  modo  aliqua  no- 
tltia  erant  conjuncti,  quoties  aliquid  a  rege  postulandum  agendumve  apud  regem 
esset,  adire,  ambire,  orare,  ut  eos  apud  regem  adjuvaret."  He  was  overwhelmed 
by  busuiess  of  this  kind,  "obnitus  negotiationibus  curationibusque."  His  house 
and  the  approaches  to  it  were  every  day  blocked  up  by  crowds  of  persons  who 
came  to  request  his  good  offices  ;  "  domus  ac  vestibula  quotidie  r^jferta  clientium 
ct  supplicantium."  From  the  Fountainhall  papers  it  appears  that  his  influence 
■was  felt  even  in  the  highlands  of  Scotland.  We  learn  from  liimself  that,  at  ibis 
time,  he  was  always  toiling  for  others,  that  he  was  a  daily  suitor  at  Whitehall, 
and  that,  if  he  had  chosen  to  sell  his  influence,  he  could,  in  little  more  than  three 
years,  have  put  twenty  thousand  pounds  into  his  pocket,  and  obtained  a  hundrea 
thousand  more  for  the  improvement  of  the  colony  of  which  he  was  proprietor. 

Such  was  the  position  of  these  two  men.  WTiich  of  them,  then,  was  the  more 
likely  to  be  employed  in  the  matter  to  which  Sunderland's  letter  related  ?  Was 
It  George  or  William,  an  agent  of  the  lowest  or  of  the  highest  class  ?  The  per- 
sons interested  were  ladies  of  rank  and  fashion,  resident  at  the  palace,  where 
George  would  hardly  have  been  admitted  into  an  outer  roorc.. but  where  William 
was  every  day  in  the  presence  chamber  and  was  frequently  called  into  the  closet. 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  589 

rect  to  say  that  his  mercy  and  his  cruelty  were  such  that  each 
reflects  infamy  on  the  other.  Our  horror  at  the  fate  of  the  sim- 
ple clowns,  the  young  lads,  the  delicate  women,  to  whom  he  was 

The  greatest  nobles  in  the  kingdom  were  zealous  and  active  in  the  cause  of  their 
fair  friends,  nobles  with  whom  William  lived  iu  habits  of  familiar  intercourse, 
but  who  would  hardly  have  thought  George  fit  company  for  their  grooms.  The 
sum  in  question  was  seven  thousand  pounds,  a  sum  not  large  when  compared 
with  the  masses  of  wealth  with  which  William  had  constantly  to  deal,  but  more 
than  a  hundred  times  as  large  as  the  only  ransom  which  is  known  to  have  passed 
through  the  hands  of  George.  These  considerations  would  suffice  to  raise  a 
strong  presumption  that  Sunderland's  letter  was  addressed- to  William,  and  not 
to  George  :  but  there  is  a  still  stronger  argument  behind. 

It  is  mo.'?t  important  to  observe  that  the  person  to  whom  this  letter  was  ad- 
dressed was  not  the  first  person  whom  the  Maids  of  Honour  had  requested  to  act 
for  them.  They  applied  to  him  because  another  person  to  whom  they  had  pre- 
viously applied,  had,  after  some  correspondence,  declined  the  office.  From  their 
first  application  we  learn  with  certainty  what  sort  of  person  they  wished  to 
employ.  If  their  first  application  had  been  made  to  some  obscure  pettifogger  or 
needy  gambler,  we  should  be  warranted  in  believing  that  the  Penne  to  whom 
their  second  application  was  made  was  George.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  their  first 
application  was  made  to  a  gentleman  of  the  highest  consideration,  we  can  hardly 
be  wrong  in  saying  that  the  Penne  to  whom  their  second  application  was  made 
must  have  been  William.  To  whom,  then,  was  their  first  application  made?  It 
was  to  Sir  Francis  Warre  of  Hestercombe,  a  Baronet  and  a  Member  of  Parlia- 
ment. The  letters  are  still  extant  in  which  the  Duke  of  Somerset,  the  proud 
Duke,  not  a  man  very  dkely  to  have  corresponded  with  George  Penne,  pressed 
Sir  Francis  to  undertake  the  commission.  The  latest  of  those  letters  is  dated 
about  three  weeks  before  Sunderland's  letter  to  Mr.  Penne.  Somerset  tells  Sir 
Francis  that  the  town  clerk  of  Bridgewater,  whose  name,  I  may  remark  in  pass- 
ing, is  spelt  sometimes  Bird  and  sometimes  Birde,  had  offered  his  services,  but 
that  those  services  had  beeii  declined.  It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  the  Maids  of 
Honour  were  d*sirous  to  have  an  agent  of  high  station  and  character.  And  they 
were  right.  For  the  sum  which  they  demanded  was  so  large  that  no  ordinai-y 
jobber  could  safely  be  entrusted  with  the  care  of  their  interests. 

As  Sir  Francis  Warre  excused  himself  from  undertaking  the  negotiation,  it 
became  necessary  for  the  Maids  of  Honour  and  their  advisers  to  choose  somebody 
who  might  supply  his  place  ;  and  they  chose  Penne.  Which  of  the  two  Pennes, 
then,  must  have  been  their  choice,  George,  a  petty  broker  to  whom  a  percentage 
on  sixty-five  pounds  was  an  object,  and  whose  highest  ambition  was  to  derive 
an  infamous  livelihood  from  cards  and  dice,  or  William,  not  inferior  in  social 
position  to  any  commoner  in  the  kingdom  ?  Is  it  possible  to  believe  that  the 
ladies,  who.  in  January,  employed  the  Duke  of  Somerset  to  procure  for  them  an 
agent  in  the  fi-st  rank  of  the  English  gentry,  and  who  did  not  think  an  attorney, 
though  occupying  a  respectable  post  in  a  respectable  corporation,  good  enough 
for  their  purpose,  would,  in  February,  have  resolved  to  trust  everything  to  a 
fellow  who  was  as  much  below  Bird  as  Bird  was  below  Warre  ? 

But,  it  is  said,  Sunderland's  letter  is  dry  and  distant ;  and  ho  never  would 
have  written  in  such  a  style  to  William  Penn  with  whom  he  was  on  friendly 
terms.  Can  it  be  necessary  for  me  to  reply  that  the  official  communicationis 
which  a  Minister  of  State  makes  to  his  dearest  friends  and  nearest  relations  are 
lis  cold  and  formal  as  those  which  he  makes  to  strangers  ?  Will  it  be  contended 
that  the  General  Wellesley,  to  whom  the  Marquis  Wellesloy,  when  Governor  of 


590  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

inexorably  severe,  is  increased  when  we  find  to  whom  and  for 
what  considerations  he  granted  his  pardon. 

The  rule  by  which  a  prince  ought,  after  a  rebellion,  to  be 
guided  in  selecting  rebels  for  iDunishment  is  perfectly  obvious. 
The  ringleaders,  the  men  of  rank,  fortune,  and  education,  whose 
power  and  whcse  artifices  have  led  the  multitude  into  error,  are 
the  proper  objects  of  severity.  The  deluded  populace,  when 
once  the  slaughter  on  the  field  of  battle  is  over,  can  scarcely  be 
treated  too  leniently.  This  rule,  so  evidently  agreeable  to  jus- 
tice and  humanity,  was  not  only  not  observed :  it  was  inverted. 
While  those  who  ought  to  have  been  spared  were  slaughtered 
by  hundreds,  the  few  who  might  with  propriety  have  been  left 
to  the  utmost  rigour  of  the  law  wei'e  spared.  This  eccentric 
clemency  has  perplexed  some  writers,  and  has  drawn  forth  lu- 
dicrous eulogies  from  others.  It  was  neither  at  all  mysterious, 
nor  at  all  praiseworthy.  It  may  be  distinctly  traced  in  every 
case  either  to  a  sordid  or  to  a  malignant  motive,  either  to  thirst 
for  money  or  to  thirst  for  blood. 

India,  addressed  so  many  letters  beginning  with  "  Sir,"  and  ending  with  "  I  have 
the  honour  to  be  your  obedient  servant,"  cannot  possibly  have  been  his  Lordship's 
brother  Arthur  ? 

But,  it  is  said.  Oldmixon  tells  a  different  story.  According  to  him,  a  Popish 
lawyer  named  Brent,  and  a  subordinate  jobber,  named  Crane,  were  the  agents  in 
the  matter  of  the  Taunton  girls.  Now  it  is  notorious  that  of  all  our  historians 
Oldmixon  is  the  least  trustworthy.  His  most  positive  assertion  would  be  of  no 
value  when  opposed  to  such  evidence  as  is  furnished  by  Sunderland's  letter.  But 
Oldmixon  asserts  nothing  positively.  Not  only  does  he  not  assert  positively 
that  Brent  and  Crime  acted  for  the  Maids  of  Honour  ;  but  he  does  not  even  assert 
positively  that  the  Maids  of  Honour  were  at  all  concerned.  He  goes  no  further 
than  "  It  was  said,"  and  '  It  was  reported-"  It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  he  was 
very  imperfectly  informed.  I  do  not  think  it  impossible,  however,  that  there 
may  have  been  some  foundation  for  the  rumour  which  he  mentions.  We  liave 
seen  that  one  busy  lawyer,  named  Bird,  volunteered  to  look  after  the  interest  of 
the  Maids  of  Honour,  and  that  they  were  forced  to  tell  him  that  they  did  not 
want  his  services.  Other  persons,  and  among  them  the  two  whom  Oldmixon 
names,  may  have  tried  to  thrust  themselves  into  so  lucrative  a  job,  and  may,  by 
pretending  to  interest  at  Court,  have  succeeded  in  obtaining  a  little  money 
from  terrified  families.  But  nothing  can  be  more  clear  than  that  the  authorised 
agent  of  the  Maids  of  Honour  was  the  l\Ir.  Penne,  to  whom  the  Secretary  of  State 
wrote  ;  and  I  firmly  believe  that  Mr.  Penno  to  have  been  William  the  Quaker. 

If  it  be  said  that  it  is  incredible  that  so  good  a  man  would  have  been  con- 
cerned in  so  bad  an  affair,  I  can  only  answer  that  this  affair  was  very  far  indeed 
from  being  the  worst  in  which  he  was  concerned. 

For  these  reasons  I  leave  the  text,  and  shall  leave  it  exactly  as  it  originally 
stood.    (1857.) 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  SU'i 

In  the  case  of  Grey  there  was  no  mitigating  circumstance. 
His  parts  and  knowledge,  the  rank  which  he  had  inherited  in 
the  state,  and  the  high  command  which  he  had  borne  in  the 
rebel  army,  would  have  pointed  him  out  to  a  Just  government 
as  a  much  fitter  object  of  punishment  than  Alice  Lisle,  than 
William  Hewllng,  than  any  of  the  hundreds  of  ignorant  peasants 
whose  skulls  and  quarters  were  exposed  in  Somersetshire.  But 
Grey's  estate  was  large  and  was  strictly  entaled.  He  had  only 
a  life  interest  in  his  property  ;  and  he  could  forfeit  no  more 
interest  than  he  had.  If  he  died,  his  lands  at  once  devolved  on 
the  next  heir.  If  he  were  pardoned,  he  would  be  able  to  pay  a 
large  ransou.  He  was  therefore  suffered  to  redeem  himself  by 
giving  a  bond  for  forty  thousand  pounds  to  the  Lord  Treasurer, 
and  smaller  sums  to  other  courtiers.* 

Sir  John  Cochrane  had  held  among  the  Scotch  rebels  the 
same  rank  which  had  been  held  by  Grey  in  the  West  of  Eng- 
land. That  Cochrane  should  be  forgiven  by  a  prince  vindictive 
beyond  all  example,  seemed  incredible.  But  Cochrane  was 
the  younger  son  of  a  rich  family  ;  it  was  therefore  only  by 
sparing  him  that  money  could  be  made  out  of  him.  His  father, 
Lord  Dnndoiiald,  offered  a  bribe  of  five  thousand  pounds  to  the 
priests  of  the  royal  hous  hold  ;  and  a  pardon  was  granted.f 

Samuel  Storey,  a  noted  power  of  sedition,  who  had  been 
Commissary  to  the  rebel  army,  and  who  had  inflamed  the 
ignorant  populace  of  Somersetshire  by  vehement  harangues  in 
which  James  had  been  described  as  an  incendiary  and  a  poisoner, 
was  admitted  to  mercy.  For  Storey  was  able  to  give  important 
assistance  to  Jeffreys  in  wringing  fifteen  thousand  pounds  out 
of  Prideaux.l 

None  of  the  traitors  had  less  right  to  expect  favour  than 
Wade,  Goodenougb,  and  Ferguson.  These  three  chiefs  of  the 
rebellion  had  fled  together  from  the  field  of  Sedgemoor,  and 
had  reached  the  coast  in  safety.     But  they  had  found  a  frigate 

*  Burnet,  i.  646,  and  Speaker  Onslow's  note;  Clarendon  to  Rochester,  May  8, 
^^^^-  ■  t  Burnet,  i.  634. 

X  Calamy's  Memoirs  ;  Commons'  Journals,  December  26,  1690;  Sunderland  to 
tJeflEreys,  September  14  1685  ;  Privy  Council  Book,  February  26, 1685^ 


592  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

cruising  near  the  spot  where  they  had  hoped  to  embark.  They 
had  then  separated.  Wade  and  Goodenough  were  soon  dis- 
covered and  brought  up  to  London.  Deeply  as  they  had  been 
implicated  in  the  Rye  House  plot,  conspicuous  as  they  had  been 
among  the  chiefs  of  the  Western  insurrection,  they  were  suffer- 
ed to  live,  because  rhey  had  it  in  their  power  to  give  informa- 
tion which  enabled  the  King  to  slaughter  and  plunder  some 
persons  whom  he  hated,  but  to  whom  he  had  never  yet  been 
able  to  bring  home  any  crime.* 

How  Ferguson  escaped  was,  and  still  is,  a  mystery.  Of  all 
the  enemies  of  the  government  he  was,  without  doubt,  the 
most  deeply  criminal.  He  was  the  original  author  of  the  plot 
for  assassinating  the  royal  brothers.  He  had  written  that 
Declaration  which,  for  insolence,  malignity,  and  mendacity, 
stands  unrivalled  even  among  the  libels  of  those  stormy  times. 
He  had  instigated  Monmouth  first  to  invade  the  kingdom,  and 
then  to  usurp  the  crown.  It  was  reasonable  to  expect  that  a 
strict  search  would  be  made  for  the  archtraitor,  as  he  was  often 
called ;  and  such  a  search  a  man  of  so  singular  an  aspect  and 
dialect  could  scarcely  have  eluded.  It  was  confidently  reported 
in  the  coffee  houses  of  London  that  Ferguson  was  taken  ;  and 
this  report  found  credit  with  men  who  had  excellent  opportuni- 
ties of  knowing  the  truth.  The  next  thing  that  was  heard  of 
him  was  that  he  was  safe  on  the  Continent.  It  was  strongly 
suspected  that  he  had  been  in  constant  communication  with  the 
government  against  which  he  was  constantly  plotting,  that  he 
had,  while  urging  his  associates  to  every  excess  of  rashness, 
sent  to  "Whitehall  just  so  much  information  about  their  proceed- 
ings as  might  suffice  to  save  his  own  neck,  and  that  therefore 
orders  had  been  given  to  let  him  escape. f 

*  Lansdowne  MS.  1152  ;  Haii.  MS.  6845  ;  London  Gazette,  July  20, 1685. 

t  Many  writers  have  asserted,  wiJiout  the  slightest  foundation,  that  a  pardon 
was  granted  to  Ferguson  by  James.  Some  have  been  so  absurd  as  to  cite  this 
imaginary  pardon,  which,  if  it  were  real,  would  prove  only  that  Ferguson  was  a 
court  spy,  in  proof  of  the  magnanimity  and  benignity  of  the  prince  who  beheaded 
Alice  Lisle  and  burned  Elizabeth  Gaunt.  Ferguson  was  not  only  not  specially 
pardoned,  but  was  excluded  by  name  from  the  general  pardon  published  in  the 
following  spring.  (London  Gazette,  March  15,1685-6,)  If,  as  the  public  suspected 
and  as  seems  probable,  indulgence  was  shown  to  him,  it  waa  indulgence  of  whlcb 


JAMK3  TH*  SECONB  598 

And  now  Jeffreys  had  done  his  worK,  and  returned  to  claim 
his  reward.  Ho  arrived  at  Windsor  from  the  West,  leaving 
carnage,  mourn  hi g,  and  terror  behind  him.  The  hatred  with 
which  he  was  regarded  by  the  people  of  Somersetshire  has  no 
parallel  in  our  history.  It  was  not  to  be  quenched  by  time  or 
by  political  changes,  was  long  transmitted  from  generation  to 
generation,  and  raged  fiercely  against  his  innocent  progeny. 
When  he  had  been  many  years  dead,  when  his  name  and  title 
were  extinct,  his  granddaughter,  the  Countess  of  Pomfret, 
travelling  along  the  wesieru  road,  was  insulted  l)y  the  populace, 
and  found  that  she  could  not  safely  venture  herself  among  the 
descendants  of  those  who  had  witnessed  the  Bloody  Assizes.* 

But  at  the  Court  Jeffreys  was  cordially  welcomed.  He  was 
a  judge  after  his  master's  own  heart.  James  had  watched  the 
circuit  with  interest  and  delight.  In  his  drawingroom  and  at 
Ids  table  he  had  frequently  talked  of  the  havoc  which  was 
naking  among  his  disaffected  subjects  with  a  glee  at  Avhich  the 
oreigu  ministers  stood  agtiast.  With  his  own  hand  he  had 
penned  accounts  of  what  ho  facetiously  called  his  Lord  Chief 
Justice's  campaign  in  the  West.  Some  hundreds  of  rebels,  His 
Majesty  wrote  to  the  Hague,  had  been  condemned.  Some  of 
them  had  been  hanged :  more  should  be  hanged ;  and  the  rest 
should  be  sent  to  the  plantations.  It  was  to  no  purpose  that 
Ken  wrote  to  implore  mercy  for  the  misguided  people,  and 
described  with  pathetic  eloquence  the  frightful  state  of  his 
diocese.  He  complained  that  it  was  impossible  to  walk  along 
the  highways  without  seeing  some  terrible  spectacle,  and  that 
the  whole  air  of  Somersetshire  was  tainted  with  death.  The 
King  read,  and  remained,  according  to  the  saying  of  Churchill, 
hard  as  the  marble  chimneypieces  of  Whitehall.     At  Windsor 

fames  was,  not  without  reason,  ashamed,  and  which  was,  as  far  as  possible,  kepS 
»ecret.  The  reports  whi."h  were  current  in  London  at  the  time  are  mentioned  ia 
*he  Obserrator,  Aiig.  1, 1685. 

Sir  John  Reresby,  who  ought  to  have  been  well  informed,  positively  affirm* 
that  Ferguson  was  taken  three  days  after  the  battle  of  Sedgemoor.  But  Sir 
John  was  certainly  wrong  as  to  the  date,  and  may  therefore  have  been  vrong  M 
to  the  whole  story.  From  the  London  Gazette,  and  from  Goodenough's  con« 
fession  (Lansdowne  JIS.  1152),  it  is  clear  th  it,  a  fortnight  aftt-r  the  battle,  Fep 
guson  had  not  been  caught,  and  was  supposed  to  be  still  lurking  in  England. 
•  Granger's  Diographical  History. 

S8 


594  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  great  seal  of  England  was  put  into  the  hands  of  Jeffreys, 
and  in  the  next  London  Gazette  it  was  solemnly  not.".ied  that 
this  honour  was  the  reward  of  the  many  eminent  and  faithful 
services  which  he  had  rendered  to  the  crown.* 

At  a  later  period,  when  all  men  of  all  parties  spoke  with 
horror  of  the  Bloody  Assizes,  the  wicked  Judge  and  the  wicked 
King  attempted  to  vindicate  themselves  by  throwing  the  blame 
on  each  other.  Jeffreys,  in  the  Tower,  protested  that,  in  his 
utmost  cruelty,  he  had  not  gone  beyond  his  master's  express 
orders,  nay,  that  he  had  fallen  short  of  them.  James,  at  Saint 
Germain's  would  willingly  have  had  it  believed  that  his  own 
inclinations  had  been  on  the  side  of  clemency,  and  that  unmerited 
obloquy  had  been  brought  on  him  by  the  violence  of  his  minister. 
But  neither  of  these  hardhearted  men  must  be  absolved  at  the 
expense  of  the  other.  The  plea  set  up  for  James  can  be  proved 
under  his  own  hand  to  be  false  in  fact.  The  plea,  of  Jeffreys, 
even  if  it  be  true  in  fact,  is  utterly  worthless. 

The  slaughter  in  the  West  was,  over.  The  slaughter  in 
Ivondon  was  about  to  begin.  The  government  was  peculiarly 
desirous  to  find  victims  among  the  great  Whig  merchants  of  the 
City.  They  had,  in  the  last  reign,  been  a  formidable  part  of 
the  strength  of  the  opposition,  'ihey  were  wealthy  ;  and  their 
wealth  was  not,  like  that  of  many  noblemen  and  country  gentle- 
men, protected  by  entail  against  forfeiture.  In  the  case  of  Grey, 
and  of  men  situated  like  him,  it  was  impossible  to  gratify 
cruelty  and  rapacity  at  once  ;  but  a  rich  trader  might  be  both 
hanged  and  plundered.  The  commercial  grandees,  howeA^er, 
though  in  general  hostile  to  Popery  and  to  arbitrary  power,  bad 
yet  been  too  scrupulous  or  too  timid  to  incur  the  guilt  of  high 
treason.  One  of  the  most  considerable  among  them  was  Henry 
Cornish.  He  had  been  an  Alderman  under  the  old  charter  of 
the  Cit}',  and  had  filled  the  office  of  Sheriff  when  the  question 
of  the  Exclusion  Bill  occupied  the  public  mind.  In  po  itics  he 
was  a  Whig :  his  religious  opinions  leaned  towards  Presbyteri- 
anism  :  but  his  temper  was  cautious  and  moderate.      It  is  not 

*  Buniet,  i.  648  ;  James  to  the  Prince  of  Or.ange,  Sept.  10,  and  24,  1685  ;  Lord 
LoiisdaU's  Memoirs  ;  Loudon  Gazette,  Oct.  1  1685. 


JAmSS    THE    SECONl>,  595 

proved  hy  trustworthy  evidence  that  he  ever  approached  the 
verge  of  treason,  lie  had,  indeed,  when  Sheriff,  been  very  un- 
willing to  employ  as  his  deputy  a  man  so  violent  and  unprinci- 
pled as  Goodenough.  When  the  Rye  House  plot  was  discovered, 
great  hopes  were  entertained  at  Whitehall  that  Cornish  would 
appear  to  have  been  concerned :  but  these  hopes  were  disap 
pointed.  One  of  the  conspirators,  indeed,  John  Rumsey,  was 
ready  to  swear  anything  :  but  a  single  witness  was  not  sufficient ; 
and  no  second  witness  could  be  found.  More  than  two  years 
had  since  elapsed.  Cornish  thought  himself  safe  ;  but  the  eye 
of  the  tyrant  was  upon  him.  Goodenough,  terrified  by  the  near 
prospect  of  death,  and  still  harbouring  malice  on  account  of  the 
unfavourable  opinion  which  had  always  been  entertained  of  him 
by  his  old  master,  consented  to  supply  the  testimony  which  had 
hitherto  been  wanting.  Cornish  was  arrested  while  transacting 
business  on  the  Exchange,  was  hurried  to  gaol,  was  kept  there 
some  days  in  solitary  confinement,  and  was  brought  altogether 
unprepared  to  the  bar  of  the  Old  Bailey.  The  case  against  him 
rested  wholly  on  the  evidence  of  Rumsey  and  Goodenough. 
Both  were,  by  their  own  confession  accomplices  in  the 
plot  with  which  they  charged  the  prisoner.  Both  were  im- 
pelled by  the  strongest  pressure  of  hope  and  fear  to  criminate 
him.  Evidence  was  produced  which  proved  that  Goodenough 
was  also  under  the  influence  of  personal  enmity.  Rumsey's 
story  was  inconsistent  with  the  story  which  he  had  told  when 
he  appeared  as  a  witness  against  Lord  Russell.  But  these 
things  were  urged  in  vain.  On  the  bench  sate  three  judges  who 
had  been  with  Jeffreys  in  the  West ;  and  it  was  remarked  by 
those  who  watched  their  deportment  that  they  had  come  back 
from  the  carnage  of  Taunton  in  a  fierce  and  excited  state.  It  ia 
indeed  but  too  true  that  the  taste  for  blood  is  a  taste  which  even 
men  not  naturally  cruel  may,  by  habit,  speedily  acquire.  The  bar 
and  the  bench  united  to  browbeat  the  unfortunate  Whig.  The 
jury,  named  by  a  courtly  Sheriff,readily  found  a  verdict  of  Guilty; 
and,  in  spite  of  the  indignant  murmurs  of  the  public,  Cornish 
suffered  death  within  ten  days  after  he  had  been  arrested.  That 
no  circumstance  of  degradation  might  be  wanting,  the  gibbet 


596  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

was  set  up  where  King  Street  meets  Cheapside,  in  sight  of  the 
bouse  where  he  had  loug  lived  iu  general  respect,  of  the  Ex- 
change where  his  credit  had  always  stood  high,  and  of  the 
Guildhall  where  he  had  distinguished  himself  as  a  popular  leader. 
He  died  with  courage  and  with  many  pious  exprsssions,  but 
showed,  by  look  and  gesture,  such  strong  resentment  at  the 
barbarity  and  injustice  with  which  he  had  been  treated,  that  his 
enemies  spread  a  caiumnions  ^epori  oojucerjQiiig  iiim.  He  was 
drunk,  they  said,  or  out  of  bis  mind,  when  he  was  turned  off. 
William  Pemi,  however,  who  stood  near  the  gallows,  and  whose 
jprejudices  were  all  on  the  side  of  the  government,  afterwards 
laid  that  he  could  see  in  Cornish's  deportment  nothing  but  the 
natural  indignation  of  an  innocent  man  slain  under  the  forms  of 
law.  The  head  of  the  mtirdered  magistrate  was  placed  ovet 
the  GmldhaU.* 

Black  as  this  case  was,  it  was  not  the  blackest  which  dis- 
graced the  sessions  of  that  autumn  at  the  Old  Bailey.  Among 
the  persons  concerned  in  the  Rye  House  plot  was  a  man  named 
James  Burton.  By  his  own  confession  he  had  been  present 
when  the  design  of  assassination  was  discussed  by  his  accom- 
plices. When  the  conspiracy  was  detected,  a  reward  was 
offered  for  his  apprehension.  He  was  saved  from  death  by  an 
ancient  matron  of  the  Baptist  persuasion,  named  Elizabeth 
Gaunt.  This  woman,  with  the  peculiar  manners  and  phrase- 
ology which  then  distinguished  her  sect,  had  a  large  charity. 
Her  life  was  passed  in  relieving  the  unhappy  of  all  religious 
denominations,  and  she  was  well  known  as  a  constant  visitor  ox 
the  gaols.  Her  political  and  theological  opinions,  as  well  as 
her  compassionate  disposition,  led  her  to  do  everything  in  her 
power  for  Burton.  She  procured  a  boat  which  took  him  to 
Gravesend,  where  he  got  on  board  of  a  ship  bound  for  Amster- 
dam. At  the  moment  of  parting  she  put  into  his  hand  a  sum  of 
money  which,  for  her  means,  was  very  large.  Burton,  afte:-" 
living  some  time  in  exile,  returned  to  England  v/itb  Monmouth, 
fought  at  Sedgemoor,  fled  to  London,  and  took  refuge  in  the 

'  :=  Trial  of  Comish  in  the  Collection  of  State  Trials  ;  Sir  J.  Hawles'3  Eemarlcs 
on  Mr.  Condsh's  Trial :  Burnet,  i.  651 ;  Blood v  Assizes  •  StsA.  1.  Qui.  and  Mar, 


JAMES    THE    SECOND.  5^7 

house  of  John  Fernley,  a  barber  in  Whitechaple.  Fernley 
was  very  poor.  He  was  besieged  by  creditors.  He  knew  that 
a  reWard  of  a  hundred  pounds  had  been  offered  by  the  govern- 
ment for  the  apprehension  of  Burton.  But  the  honest  man 
was  incapable  of  betraying  one  who,  in  extreme  peril,  had  come 
under  the  shadow  of  his  roof.  Unhappily  it  was  soon  noised 
abroad  that  the  anger  of  James  was  more  strongly  excited 
against  those  who  harboured  rebels  than  against  the  rebels 
themselves.  He  had  publicly  declared  that  of  all  forms  of 
treason  the  hiding  of  traitors  from  his  vengeance  was  the  most 
unpardonable.  Burton  knew  this.  He  delivered  himself  up  to 
the  government;  and  he  gave  information  against  Fernley  and 
Elizabeth  Gaunt.  They  were  brought  to  trial.  The  villain 
whose  life  they  had  preserved  had  the  heart  and  the  forehead 
to  appear  as  the  principal  witness  against  them.  They  were 
convicted.  Fernley  was  sentenced  to  the  gallows,  Elizabeth 
Gaunt  to  the  stake.  Even  after  all  the  horrors  of  that  year, 
many  thought  it  impossible  that  these  judgments  should  be 
carried  into  execution.  But  the  King  was  without  pity.  Fern- 
ley was  hanged.  Elizabeth  Gaunt  was  burned  alive  at  Tyburn 
on  the  same  day  on  which  Cornish  suffered  death  in  Cheapside. 
She  left  a  paper  written,  indeed,  in  no  graceful  style,  yet  such 
as  was  read  by  many  thousands  with  compassion  and  horror. 
"My  fault,"  she  said,  "  was  one  which  a  prince  might  well  have 
forgiven.  I  did  but  relieve  a  poor  family;  and  lo!  I  must  die 
for  it."  She  complained  of  the  insolence  of  the  judges,  of  the 
ferocity  of  the  gaoler,  and  of  the  tyranny  of  him,  the  great  one 
of  all,  to  whose  pleasure  she  and  so  many  other  victims  had 
been  sacrificed.  In  so  far  as  they  had  injured  herself,  she 
forgave  them:  but,  in  that  they  were  implacable  enemies  of 
that  good  cause  which  would  yet  revive  and  flourish,  she  left 
them  to  the  judgment  of  the  King  of  Kings.  To  the  last  she 
preserved  a  tranquil  courage,  which  reminded  the  spectators  of 
the  most  heroic  deaths  of  which  they  had  read  in  Fox,  William 
Penn,  for  whom  exhibitions  which  humane  men  generally  avoid 
seem  to  have  had  a  strong  attraction,  hastened  from  Cheapside, 
where  he  had  seen  Cornish  hanged,  to  Tyburn,  in  order  to  see 


598  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

Elizabeth  Gaunt  burned.  He  afterwards  related  that,  when 
she  calmly  disposed  the  straw  about  her  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
shorten  her  sufferings,  all  the  bystanders  burst  into  tears.  It 
was  much  noticed  that,  w^iile  the  foulest  judicial  murder  -sphich 
had  disgraced  even  those  times  was  perpetrating,  a  tempest 
burst  forth,  such  as  had  not  been  known  since  that  great  hurri- 
cane which  had  raged  round  the  deathbed  of  Oliver.  The  op- 
pressed Puritans  reckoned  up,  not  without  a  gloomy  satisfaction, 
the  houses  which  had  been  blown  down,  and  the  ships  which  had 
been  cast  away,  and  derived  some  consolation  from  thinking  that 
heaven  was  bearing  awful  testimony  against  the  iniquity  which 
afflicted  the  earth.  Since  that  terrible  day  no  woman  has  suf- 
fered death  in  England  for  any  political  offence.* 

It  was  not  thought  that  Goodenough  had  yet  earned  his 
pardon.  The  government  was  bent  on  destroying  a  victim  of 
no  high  rank,  a  surgeon  in  the  Ji<^y,  named  Bateman.  He  had 
attended  Shaftesbury  professionally,  and  had  been  a  zealous 
Exclusionist.  He  may  possibly  have  been  privy  to  the  Whig 
plot ;  but  it  is  certain  that  he  had  not  been  one  of  the  leading 
conspirators  ;  for,  in  the  great  mass  of  depositions  published  by 
the  government,  his  name  occurs  only  once,  and  then  not  in 
connection  with  any  crime  bordering  on  liigh  treason.  From 
his  indictment,  and  from  the  scanty  account  which  remains  of 
his  trial,  it  seems  clear  that  he  was  not  even  accused  of  partici- 
pating in  the  design  of  murdering  the  royal  brothers.  The 
malignity  with  which  so  obscure  a  man,  guilty  of  so  slight  an 
offence,  was  hunted  down,  while  traitors  far  more  criminal  and 
far  more  eminent  were  allowed  to  ransom  themselves  by  giving 
evidence  against  him,  seemed  to  require  explanation ;  and  a 
disgraceful  explanation  was  found.  When  Gates,  after  his 
scourging,  was  carried  into  Newgate  insensible,  and,  as  all 
thought,  in  the  last  agony,  he  had  been  bled  and  his  wounds 
had  been  dressed  by  Bateman.  This  was  an  offence  not  to  be 
forgiven.     Bateman  was  arrested  and  indicted.     The  witnesses 

*  Trials  of  Femley  and  Elizabeth  Gaunt,  in  the  Collection  of  State  Trials ; 
Burnet,  i.  $49 ;  Bloody  Assizes ;  Sir  J.  Bramston's  Memoirs  ;  Luttrell's  Diary, 
Oct.  23, 1685. 


JAMES    THE    SFOOND.  599 

igainst  him  were  men  of  infamous  character,  men,  too,  who  were 
swearing  for  their  own  lives.  None  of  them  had  yet  got  his 
pardon  ;  and  it  was  a  popular  saj'ing,  that  they  fished  for  prey, 
like  tame  cormorants,  with  ropes  round  their  necks.  The  pris- 
oner, stupefied  by  illness,  was  unable  to  articulate,  or  to  under- 
stand what  passed.  His  son  and  daughter  stood  by  him  at  the 
bar.  They  read  as  well  as  they  could  some  notes  which  he  had 
set  down,  and  examined  hi .  witnesses.  It  was  to  little  purpose. 
He  was  convicted,  hanged,  and  quartered. *" 

Never,  not  even  under  the  tyranny  of  Laud,  had  the  con- 
dition of  the  Puritans  been  so  deplorable  as  at  that  time.  Never 
had  spies  been  so  actively  employed  in  detecting  congregations. 
Never  had  magistrates,  grand  jurors,  rectors  and  churchwardens 
been  so  much  on  the  alert.  Many  Dissenters  were  cited  before 
the  ecclesiastical  courts.  Others  found  it  necessary  to  purchase 
the  connivance  of  the  agents  of  the  government  by  presents  of 
hogsheads  of  wine,  and  of  gloves  stuffed  with  guineas.  It  was  im- 
possible for  the  separatists  to  pray  together  without  precautions, 
such  as  are  employed  by  coiners  and  receivers  of  stolen  goods. 
The  places  of  meeting  were  frequently  changed.  Worship  was 
performed  sometimes  just  befoi'e  break  of  day  and  sometimes  at 
dead  of  night.  Round  the  building  where  the  little  flock 
was  gathered  sentinels  were  posted  to  give  the  alarm  if  a 
stranger  drew  near.  The  minister  in  disguise  was  introduced 
through  the  garden  and  the  back  yard.  In  some  houses  there 
were  trap  doors  through  which,  in  case  of  danger,  he  might 
descend.  Where  Nonconformists  lived  next  door  to  each  otner, 
the  walls  were  often  broken  open,  and  secret  passages  were 
made  from  dwelling  to  dwelling.  No  psalm  was  sung;  and 
many  contrivances  were  used  to  prevent  the  voice  of  the  preacher, 
in  his  moments  of  fervour,  from  being  heard  beyond  the  walls. 
Tet,  with  all  this  care,  it  was  often  found  impossible  to  elude 
ihe  vigilance  of  informers.  In  the  suburbs  of  London,  especial- 
Cy,  the  law  was  enforced  with  the  utmost  rigour.     Several  opu 

•  T'ateman's  Trial  in  the  Collection  of  State  Trials  ;  Sir  John  Hawles's  Re- 
marks. It  is  worth  while  to  compare  Thomas  Lee's  evidence  on  this  occasion 
Wtb  his  confession  previously  published  by  authority. 


''00  HISTORY    OF    ENGI.AND. 

lent  gentlemen  were  accused  of  holding  conventicles.  Their 
houses  were  strictly  searched,  and  distresses  were  levied  to  the 
amount  of  many  thousands  of  poun<is.  The  fiercer  and  bolder 
sectaries,  thus  driven  from  the  shelter  of  roofs,  met  in  the  open 
air,  and  determined  to  repel  force  by  force.  A  Middlesex  justice 
who  had  learned  that  a  nightly  prayer  meeting  was  held  in  a 
f^ravel  pit  about  two  miles  from  London,  took  with  him  a  strong 
body  of  constables,  broke  in  upon  the  assembl}-,  and  seized  tho 
preacher.  But  the  congregation,  which  consisted  of  about  two 
hundred  men,  soon  rescued  their  pastor,  and  put  the  magisti-ate  and 
his  officers  to  flight.*  This,  however,  was  no  ordinary  occurrence. 
In  general  the  Puritan  spirit  seemed  to  be  more  effectually  cowed 
at  this  conjuncture  than  at  any  moment  before  or  since.  The 
Tory  pamphleteers  boasted  that  not  one  fanatic  dared  to  move 
tongue  or  pen  in  defence  of  his  religious  opinions.  Dissenting 
ministers,  however  blameless  in  life,  however  eminent  for  learn- 
ing and  abilities,  could  not  venture  to  walk  the  streets  for  fear 
of  outrages,  which  were  not  only  not  repressed,  but  encouraged, 
by  those  whose  duty  it  was  to  preserve  the  peace.  Some  divines 
of  great  fame  were  in  prison.  Among  these  was  Richard  Bax- 
ter. Others,  who  had,  during  a  quarter  of  a  century,  borne  up 
against  oppression,  now  lost  heart,  and  quitted  the  kingdom. 
Among  these  was  John  Howe.  Great  numbers  of  persons  who 
had  been  accustomed  to  frequent  conventicles  repaired  to  the 
parish  churches.  It  was  remarked  that  the  schismatics  who  had 
been  terrified  into  this  show  of  conformity  might  easily  be  dis- 
tinguished by  the  difficulty  which  they  had  in  finding  out  the 
collect,  and  by  the  awkward  manner  in  which  they  bowed  at  the 
name  of  Jesus-f 

Through  many  years  the  autumn  of  1685  was  remembered 

•  Van  Citters,  Oct.       1685. 

t  Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans,  Calamy's  Account  of  the  ejected  Ministers, 
and  the  Nonoonforniists'  Memorial,  contain  abundant  proofs  of  the  severity  of 
Uiis  persecution  Howe's  farewell  letter  to  his  flock  will  be  found  in  the  interest- 
ing life  of  that  great  man,  by  Mr.  Rogers.  Howe  complains  that  he  could  not 
7enture  to  show  himself  in  the  streets  of  London,  and  that  his  health  had  sufEere(} 
from  want  of  air  and  exercise.  But  tne  most  vivid  picture  of  the  distress  of  the 
Nonconformists  is  furnished  by  their  deadly  enemy,  Lestrange,  in  the  Observa. 
tors  of  September  and  October,  1685. 


JAMES    THE    SECONIi.  601 

iiy  the  Nonconformists  as  a  time  of  misery  and  terror.  Yet 
in  that  aatumn  misht  be  discerned  the  first  faint  indications  of  a 
great  turn  of  fortune  ;  and  before  eighteen  months  had  elapsed, 
the  intolerant  King  and  the  intolerant  Church  were  eagerly  bid- 
ding against  each  other  fo-r  the  support  of  the  party  which  boti- 
had  so  deeply  injured. 


OF   YOL   I. 


